Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns is shifting some campaign efforts
for tougher gun laws to the states.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the activist coalition funded by billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had a victory Monday in its campaign for new gun restrictions at the state level. That
happened in Nevada. On a 23-19 vote, the Democratic majority-led state Senate passed SB221 to extend background checks to all private gun sales. Currently, only dealer sales are covered in Nevada by background checks under federal law.
The bill, already passed by the state house, also mandates quicker reporting of court findings on dangerously mentally ill people. Penalties for handing over a firearm without a background check include loss of gun rights for up to two years and the possibility of incarceration.
Just one problem: Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval plans to veto it. Monday was the final day of the bi-annual legislative session, and if the bill gets Sandoval's thumbs-down, no new background check proposal can be introduced until 2015.
Shortly after the vote, videos surfaced of a new video ad from the group pressuring Gov. Brian Sandoval to sign the bill into law, and Bloomberg issued a statement congratulating lawmakers.
“By passing legislation to require comprehensive and enforceable background checks for all gun sales, Nevada’s lawmakers have taken a significant step forward in the fight against illegal guns,” Bloomberg said [...]
Nevada isn't the only state where Bloomberg
has shifted some resources in the campaign for new gun restrictions after advocates lost the fight for stronger measures at the federal level in mid-April. Some 50 people financed by MAIG have fanned out across the country with the intent of building local grassroots organizations and pressuring state politicians. Clearly Bloomberg is in this fight for the long haul:
In Washington State, where a Bloomberg-backed background-checks bill was defeated in the Legislature this year, the coalition is assisting with a ballot initiative on the same issue. In Oregon, the group has hired lobbyists to revive long-stalled legislation to regulate private gun sales. In Colorado, where the coalition helped pass stricter gun laws this year, it is preparing to defend lawmakers against a recall effort pushed by the National Rifle Association.
Mr. Bloomberg faces an uphill battle—many of the states he seeks to influence are places where guns are dear and New York is not. He is going up against well-organized networks of gun enthusiasts, with scores of rural voters eager to block his every move.
So unpopular is the mayor among many gun-owners that some state lobbyists working with the coalition have advised against mentioning Bloomberg's name. It would not be surprising if the NRA or one of the even more extreme gun lobbies imitated the
Pace Picante Sauce ads of a few years back and started sneeringly advertising proposed state gun laws in the West or South as originating in New York City.
Below the fold is some discussion of newly proposed laws in a state where Bloomberg's efforts won't be needed.
While Nevada's bills are unlikely to be signed, next-door California has a boatload in the hopper. The state already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, including required background checks of all private sales, an assault weapons ban and a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines made since 1989. All firearms sales are recorded by the state. California also has strict rules and reporting on gun possession by people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility even for a few days. They can't own guns for five years.
But if the majority of Democrats in the state house approve bills already passed by the Senate and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signs them, California will reach further than any state has so far done.
Among other things, those bills would:
• require a background check and a $50 annual permit to buy ammunition;
• ban all magazines of more than 10 rounds by people who already own them;
• expand the current requirement for a handgun certificate to rifle purchases;
• prohibit the sale, purchase, manufacture, importation or transfer of any semi-automatic rifle that can accept a detachable magazine (which includes large percentages of hunting rifles);
• ban "bullet buttons" and similar devices that make reloading of semi-automatic rifles easier;
• change the definition of guns already banned in the state to include a shotgun-rifle combination shotgun with a rifled barrel, and to register as an "assault weapon" any shotgun with a revolving cylinder legally acquired from Jan. 1, 2001 to Dec. 31, 2013;
• expand the list of people prohibited from owning weapons to include people convicted of certain drug and alcohol offenses.
Another bill would require all newly manufactured or imported handguns in the state to be so-called "smart guns," digitally customized so only the owner can fire them. This would only come into effect 18 months after the state attorney general determines that such weapons are available for sale and meet certain performance standards.
If Brown were to sign all or most of these bills, assuming they pass the state house, then it could be California that replaces New York as a source of derision in NRA-sponsored ads attacking new gun laws.