When former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg—the anti-gun billionaire who backs Everytown for Gun Safety and other gun control efforts—announced the other day he might finance his own presidential campaign, a nationally-recognized rights group drew a line in the sand and reminded Bloomberg that the White House and Constitutional rights “are not for sale.”
When the Washington legislature opened for business Monday, there was a bill waiting that may not go anywhere, but it just might embarrass some anti-gun lawmakers because it would “require legislators who draft gun legislation to be trained and pass a test,” according to the Auburn Reporter. Call it an “in-your-face” or “turnabout-is-fair-play” effort, Fortunato’s bill is like cold water in the face of anti-gun lawmakers who create legislation governing the use and ownership of firearms, which they essentially know nothing about.
As for Bloomberg, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms told Bloomberg in a prepared statement Monday that his billions can’t buy the Bill of Rights, especially the Second Amendment. He may think he can, but that’s where his ego will collide with the Constitution, CCRKBA suggested.
“Michael Bloomberg has been bankrolling extremist gun prohibition efforts for years, because he evidently believes his riches entitle him to tell the rest of the nation how he thinks we should live, and what rights we can exercise,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “There is not enough money in his bank account to buy our liberty, and that for sure includes the Second Amendment rights he so despises.”
Bloomberg backs Everytown and its subsidiary, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. He has contributed large sums of money to anti-rights initiatives in Washington State, and backed anti-gun politicians in several states.
For example, Everytown endorsed Oregon State Sen. Rob Wagner – according to Guns.com – who is sponsoring SB 501, which would require gun owners to get a permit to purchase or receive a firearm, mandates gun locks or safe storage, outlaws magazines that hold more than five rounds, requires background checks for ammunition purchases and limits such purchases to 20 rounds every 30 days, and sets a 14-day waiting period on firearms transfers.
In a bristling statement, Gottlieb bluntly observed, “America is not ready to elect a so-called ‘benevolent dictator’ and that’s the sort of leadership that billionaire Bloomberg seems to think the country needs, with him on the throne. Thanks, but no thanks.
“Michael Bloomberg seems to think that his fortune gives him some sort entitlement to lead the country, and that the country needs him at the helm,” he added. “Honestly, America’s law-abiding firearms owners have had quite enough of him. If he wants to run for something, he can run for the border and once he crosses it, he can buy a third-world country to be the dictator of.”
For his part, Fortunato used the words of anti-gun politicians to underscore their firearms ignorance. For example, Democrat California State Sen. Kevin de Leon described a “ghost gun” as a firearm that “has the ability, with a .30-caliber clip, to disperse with 30 bullets within half a second; 30 magazine clip in half a second.”
Fortunato recalled a comment by anti-gun Congresswoman Dianne DeGette (D-CO), who erroneously claimed that the “number of these high-capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.” DeGette apparently did not understand that magazines can be reloaded again and again, to be used repeatedly.
And then there was the classic from anti-gun U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who observed, “We have federal regulations and state laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than three rounds. And yet it’s legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines.”
In response, Fortunato stated, “I guess no one told Sen. Feinstein that it’s illegal to hunt humans.”
The veteran Republican state lawmaker explained his legislation, SB 5172, thusly: “I just think that it is fair to require some competency training for legislators so they can better understand what the heck they are talking about.”
By no surprise, there are no co-sponsors for Fortunato’s bill, at least so far. It takes a bit of backbone to stand up to anti-gun bullies, whether they are billionaires or just blowhards who know nothing about their subject matter. Gottlieb has been doing it for decades. Fortunato just fired a shot across some bows in Olympia.
