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July 13, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - In a stinging defeat for Mayor Bloomberg, pro-gun-rights Democrats teamed with House Republicans yesterday to block local governments and law-enforcement agencies from gaining routine access to gun-purchase data.
The House Appropriations Committee defeated two attempts by gun-control advocates to strip restrictions on the use of information from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tracing gun sales.
"As happens too often in Washington, common sense didn't carry the day - special interests did," said Bloomberg, the co-chairman of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Under Bloomberg, who recently left the GOP amid speculation he may run for president as an independent, New York City has sued out-of-state gun dealers in an attempt to reduce the flow of illegal guns there.
Gun-rights advocates, led by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), said Bloomberg and other big-city mayors wanted to use the data in their suits against dealers who sell the guns that the mayors say disproportionately end up in the hands of criminals.
The mayors say gun tracing data helps police departments determine the source of illegal guns, who buys them and how they are distributed.
Almost three-fifths of guns used in crimes are sold by just 1 percent of gun dealers who forge relationships with gun traffickers making multiple purchases, gun-control advocates say.
Friday the 13th Caps a Bad Week for Mayor Bloomberg; and More
By Sewell Chan
It has not been a good week for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
On Thursday, as Diane Cardwell reports, the House Appropriations Committee voted to extend the Tiahrt Amendment, a federal spending provision that restricts the release of gun-trace data. The decision is a major defeat for the mayor, who had made repeal of the amendment a central plank of his gun-control efforts and an important goal of the coalition he helped organize, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Meanwhile, another signature Bloomberg proposal, congestion pricing, is on the rocks. Nicholas Confessore and Michael M. Grynbaum report that Assembly lawmakers in Albany are skeptical of the mayor’s claim — buttressed by federal officials — that the city will not be eligible for some $500 million in federal grants for traffic mitigation unless the State Legislature acts by Monday. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, said “the mayor can go down two roads,” invoking the specter of the 2005 West Side stadium, a Bloomberg-championed project that was blocked in Albany:
He can try to work with us and get something that makes sense to deal with the issue of congestion, and hopefully at the end of the day we can get there, whenever that day is. Or he can choose to go the way he went on the stadium, and challenge people to say no to him.
(Speaking of the stadium: Charles V. Bagli reports that Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will formally begin soliciting bids today on the West Side railyards.)
The Daily News depicts the mayor’s situation in fairly bleak terms. One article calls the extension of the Tiahrt Amendment “a stunning defeat,” while another describes the congestion pricing plan as having “skidded into the breakdown lane,” given Mr. Silver’s refusal to call a meeting of the Assembly on Monday to act. (Mr. Silver has instead asked for some members to gather in Manhattan for a meeting to discuss congestion pricing.)
The New York Post reports that Mr. Spitzer took a dig at Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to jet off to the resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho, where an elite media conference is taking place. “I hear the congestion in Sun Valley is tougher than the congestion in Manhattan right now,” Mr. Spitzer said at a breakfast with the state’s congressional delegation in Washington. The Post notes: “Spitzer, who generally has a good relationship with the mayor, raised eyebrows with his comment — primarily because he wasn’t even asked about Bloomberg being AWOL.” The mayor is scheduled to return on Saturday, and the governor added, optimistically, “But I think Mike is going to be very involved between now and Monday working with us to see what we can do.”
The Associated Press describes the extension of the Tiahrt Amendment as “a stinging defeat.” Newsday reports that advocates of congestion pricing are “willing to negotiate virtually every detail,” fearful that the plan will be effectively killed next week.
Schadenfreude
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2...d-week-for-mayor-bloomberg-and-more/#more-334
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
Just to put the Tiahrt Amendment into perspective - in the last issue of America's First Freedom, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police as well as the #1 BATFag (BATFE director Michael J. Sullivan) wrote editorials defending its renewal, saying that allowing it to expire would not help law enforcement and that Bloomberg was basically full of shit. Mikey responded with a pretty lame comeback - he called the FOP "a fringe organization"
