Michael Bloomberg: The Most Dangerous Presidential Candidate Ever :: 02/02/2020

With the horrible group of gun-hating and gun owner-hating politicians running for the Democrat presidential nomination, there’s no doubt the Second Amendment is in peril. Even with the recent departing of Cory Booker—who had so much disdain for liberty, guns and gun owners that it was hard to even fathom—a little research shows the rest of the candidates are just as bad.

Joe (stick your shotgun out the door and fire two blasts) Biden was a huge fan of the failed Clinton “assault weapon” ban of the 1980s. And Elizabeth Warren, when she’s not trying to make herself into something she isn’t, speaks out in favor of nearly every anti-2A scheme imaginable.

In fact, every Democrat candidate fighting to get on the ballot is on record to be in support of banning many common semi-automatic firearms owned by millions of law-abiding Americans, passing dangerous “red flag” laws that imperil both citizens and law enforcement, forcing so-called “universal” background checks that can never be universal since criminals don’t follow laws, and repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (which shields legal gun manufacturers from lawsuits when criminals illegally use their lawfully-produced products to commit crimes).

In my opinion, however, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg—a man who think he knows what’s best for every man, woman and child in America and wants to bend them all to his whims—is the most dangerous of all.

“Wait a minute,” you might say. “What about Hillary Clinton? Is Bloomberg worse that even her?”

I believe he is. Bloomberg is smarter, shrewder and more presentable than Clinton was before the 2016 elections, when nearly every public appearance she made turned into some kind of train wreck. More importantly, despite all of her questionable contributions, Bloomberg has way more money—he has a net worth of nearly $56 billion—to pursue the office than she did.

While he’s not in the so-called front-runners of the Democrat pack right now, Bloomberg is willing to spend billions of dollars of his own money to buy his way to the White House. In fact, Bloomberg has said he’ll spend up to $1 billion of his own money to see a Democrat elected president this fall—even if he’s not the one who wins the nomination.

Once there, the amount of destruction he could do to our country is unthinkable. That’s easy to know by the way he talks about freedom, liberty and the concept of citizen’s rights.

“I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom,” Bloomberg once said during an interview with NBC.

Does Bloomberg completely misunderstand that the Bill of Rights, which includes the Second Amendment, was created solely to limit government, not give government the power to control citizens in whatever way it wishes? That just might be the case. Or, perhaps he just doesn’t care about such old-fashioned concepts as liberty and inalienable rights. Such archaic notions just don’t seem to belong in a possible Bloomberg-run United States of America.

Bloomberg The Mayor

In fact, Bloomberg’s know-it-all attitude was certainly on display during his NYC reign. Nearly everyone likely remembers his attempt to ban large soft drinks with lots of sugar. In fact, it was more than an attempt as he actually managed to make such drinks illegal. Eventually, however, that nanny-state regulation was overturned by the courts.

While that has nothing to do with guns, it shows how Bloomberg will pursue any legislation he personally considers good, whether or not it is constitutional or not. And his anti-gun advocacy during his mayoral terms cannot be overstated.

While in office, Bloomberg was instrumental in creating Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a misleadingly named cabal of anti-gun mayors dedicated to the same gun-control schemes he advances. With the help of a friendly so-called “mainstream” media, mayors from the group were given a bully pulpit to attack gun rights in a much more public manner. Ironically, many of the members later faced criminal charges of their own.

As mayor, Bloomberg also sued out-of-state gun dealers, accusing them of illegally selling handguns that were later used to commit crimes in NYC. Of course, the vast majority of gun dealers are law-abiding folks. Yet Bloomberg didn’t mind dragging them all through the mud in this excellent example of the “death by a thousand cuts” scheme. Innocent gun dealers were still required to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars defending themselves against such allegations.

Disdain for 2A rights is just one aspect of Bloomberg’s character as far as liberty is concerned. His prejudice—indeed racial prejudice—shown in his support of such policies as stop-and-frisk throws his ability to govern fairly even more into question.

In 2015 during a speech at the Aspen Institute, Bloomberg indicated his support for racially-targeted gun control, a move that gun owners didn’t take well, regardless of race.

"It’s controversial but, first thing is all of your, 95 percent, 95 percent of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg said. “You can just take the description and Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25. That’s true in New York, it’s true in virtually every city in America. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed.”

Such a statement brings up an interesting question: Once Bloomberg has disarmed minority males under 25 (an impossibility, obviously), what group might he target next? Will it be non-minority males under 25? Or perhaps white males over 50? Once the precedent is set of infringing on a constitutional right based on age and race, what liberties can’t be trampled with no recourse?

Taking It National

Aside from the heartbreak he brought to New York City’s law-abiding gun owners, Bloomberg’s extravagant spending to try to put other states under New York City-style restrictions is even more maddening. Imagine a rich former NYC mayor thinking he knows what’s best for citizens of states where he doesn’t even live and likely hasn’t even visited.

Yet that’s where Bloomberg has put much of his emphasis over the past several years. For example, look what Bloomberg did in Nevada and Maine in the November 2016 election.

In Nevada, Bloomberg heavily funded a ballot initiative that would punish law-abiding gun owners but have no effect on criminals or violent crime. Question 1 was designed to outlaw private gun sales and even loans by requiring all firearm transfers to take place through the agency of a licensed dealer, with both parties present and a background check conducted. Note that it applied to all transfers, not just sales—meaning a Nevada resident wouldn’t be able to gift a treasured heirloom gun to a child without getting an FFL holder involved.

Nevada residents were warned by the NRA and other pro-gun groups that the measure would do much to criminalize otherwise lawful activities by gun owners who do not understand the new restrictions, and there was no indication that it would stop criminals from acquiring guns—especially since arms traffickers tend to rely heavily on straw purchases.

Despite efforts by gun-rights supporters and more than half of the county sheriffs in the state opposing the initiative, the ballot question narrowly passed. Later, it was struck down by a court for being unenforceable, which was a victory for gun owners. But it was a short-lived victory, indeed. In 2019, the Nevada legislature passed a similar measure, with much of the anti-gun funding coming from Bloomberg and his affiliated groups.

Much the same situation occurred in Maine, where Bloomberg dumped more than $3 million into anti-gun coffers to try to pass unconstitutional restrictions. Question 3 was similar to Nevada’s Question 1 and would have basically ended common firearms transfers though so-called “universal” background checks. (Never mind that they can’t be “universal” since criminals don’t buy their guns through legal means and wouldn’t follow the law anyway, but that’s another story.)

Of course, it was already illegal in Maine to knowingly sell a firearm to someone who is a prohibited person, as well as for a prohibited person to buy, own or possess a firearm. So, in effect, the proposed law would only affect law-abiding gun owners—just as such laws have always done in other places they were instituted.

At the time, state Rep. Beth O’Connor, summed up the proposal best: “The proponents of this legislation try to make you think you will be safer if there are more laws on the books regarding guns. This is absolute rubbish. What these individuals really want is ultimate control, and the only way they can have that control is to disarm the American people. But no one should be subservient to any government entity.” 

Chris Cox, then-executive director of NRA-ILA, described Bloomberg’s high-dollar participation in Maine perfectly: “[Michael Bloomberg] believes he should decide everything from how big a soda you can buy to how much salt you’re allowed to have in your food to what colors are acceptable for the new roof you want to put on your home. Now Bloomberg’s pouring millions into trying to make the state of Maine just like New York City when it comes to gun control.”

In the end, Mainers narrowly defeated the measure with just under 52 percent of the vote. Yet they aren’t out of the woods yet, as Bloomberg-funded anti-gun politicians continue to push for background checks through legislative means. Also, Maine’s law-abiding gun owners are continuing to fight other Bloomberg-backed restrictions. Already this year, the legislature is considering bans on certain types of firearms and expanding arbitrary zones where law-abiding citizens are left defenseless.

Most recently, Bloomberg has been instrumental in the anti-freedom fiasco taking place in Virginia. With his seemingly endless funds and rabble-rousing associates, Bloomberg is, in large part, responsible for much of the chaos in the Commonwealth, where the situation is teetering on the brink. One can only hope and pray that 2A supporters there win the battle, as a victory by the other side would not only greatly curtail freedom there, but would embolden Bloomberg-funded politicians in other states to press harder to infringe our right to keep and bear arms.

Building A Movement

While Bloomberg has managed to do irreparable damage to Second Amendment rights over the years, he hasn’t done it alone. The network he has built, through shear amounts of money spent, has helped him find success he could never have experienced as just one rich, loudmouth politician who hates gun owners.

Consider the Bloomberg-created and Bloomberg-funded anti-gun group that calls itself Everytown for Gun Safety. While the group doesn’t represent every town and doesn’t care a whit about gun safety, the name, and Bloomberg’s bucks, made it the darling of anti-gun media outlets who can’t wait to rush to leader Shannon Watts for quote nearly every time a criminal uses a firearm to commit a crime.

Watts, in fact, has become a huge celebrity because of her Bloomberg-funded elevation. Now near the top of the so-called “gun safety” movement (read as: gun-ban movement), she can parade around and spread her myths about gun owners and push her agenda to further curtail the rights of average Americans without ever receiving hard questions from the adoring media.

Don’t believe Watts and her group aren’t really about “gun safety”? A quick look at the group’s website proves my point. Among other freedom-crushing proposals, Everytown supports bans on semi-automatic firearms, “universal” background checks, “red flag” laws that disarm Americans without due process, even laws making lawful gun manufacturers responsible for violent criminals illegally using their products. With an agenda like that, Watts should consider running for the Democrat presidential nomination! She’d fit right in.

Of course, when you got to Everytown’s website, the first thing that pops up on your screen is the opportunity to donate to “help save lives.” Even with a billionaire cash-daddy like Bloomberg, the group still tries to get donations from gullible Americans to use to fight against those same Americans’ freedom!

Further, consider Bloomberg’s “gun news” website The Trace. On the day of this writing, the lead story on the website was about Second Amendment sanctuary cities. And while the author tried to pretend to be unbiased throughout much of the story, she ended it with a quote from Brady Campaign Vice President Christian Heyne. Consequently, the final thought left in readers’ minds was: “We’re not talking about a grassroots movement. This is coming from this gun industry that, frankly, can feel the fact that the public no longer finds them relevant.”

Other headlines that day included “Virginia Democrats, Undeterred, Continue to Advance Gun Bills,” “Shootings Across the Country Left Dozens Injured This Weekend,” “Suspected Neo-Nazi Had Built Functioning Machine Gun,” and “Millions of Guns for Sale: Few Questions Asked.” And, of course, there was a plea for funding as if the founder, Bloomberg, is too broke to foot the bill.

Stories from The Trace often make their way into so-called “mainstream” media without readers knowing they are getting their news from a decidedly anti-gun source. Those media outlets will happily trot out the same bogus statistics The Trace uses—many of which, incredibly, came from “research” by foundations also funded by Bloomberg and charged with finding a “link” between gun ownership and crime!

Note that The Trace isn’t always wrong about guns and related matters. But the few times it does get something right, few in the “mainstream” media bother to report it since it doesn’t fit their agenda.

White House Bound?

In the end, the main reason Bloomberg—and any other anti-2A politicians, for that matter—must be kept out of the Oval Office is deep-seated disdain for gun owners and their well-being. They say the police will protect us, so we don’t need to own or carry a gun to defend ourselves and our families. They tell us that’s what police are for, and that we don’t have enough training or savvy to use a gun when the chips are down. And they say all that despite the fact that courts have ruled multiple times that law enforcement officers have absolutely no obligation at all to protect us.

Following the high-profile shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, where sheriff’s deputies waited outside until the massacre was over, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom ruled that sheriff’s deputies were not constitutionally obligated to protect the students.

“The claim arises from the actions of [the shooter], a third party, and not a state actor,” Bloom, a Barack Obama appointee, stated in her ruling on the case. “Thus, the critical question the Court analyzes is whether defendants had a constitutional duty to protect plaintiffs from the actions of [the shooter].”

That’s not the first time such a ruling has been made. The 1981 case Warren v. District of Columbia actually set the precedent that has been upheld multiple times. In that case, two attackers repeatedly raped and brutalized three women in a Washington, D.C., rooming house. The police were called by two women on the third floor hearing an attack downstairs, and they responded but didn’t enter the building.

The two women called police a second time, but no officers were dispatched. Thinking they heard police downstairs, they came out of hiding and were discovered by the attackers, who spent several hours raping all three women.

Ultimately, the court ruled against the plaintiffs based on, “the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.”

That ruling is just one of many reasons gun owners can’t let Bloomberg or any other anti-gun politician—which includes every current Democrat presidential candidate—deny us our God-given rights to self-defense as protected by the Second Amendment. Encourage any Democrat friends you might have to vote against Bloomberg in the primaries. While the other candidates are just as bad on 2A issues, Bloomberg’s billions make him extremely dangerous heading into November’s general election.

A Bloomberg presidency could spell the end of Second Amendment freedom as we know it. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to not let that happen on our watch.

Mark Chesnut is a freelance writer and the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for the past 20 years.

https://www.firearmsnews.com/editorial/michael-bloomberg-dangerous-candidate/371715