[ED: We first published this almost a year ago. But now that it looks like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be getting into the Democrat presidential primary race, we’re sure that our friends in the legacy media will want to dig through everything he’s ever written or said on any topic of potential interest.]
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Former New York Mayor and reported presidential wanna-be Michael Bloomberg held forth before a sold-out Aspen Institute crowd on Friday. Because he has billions of dollars, he draws crowds and is frequently asked his opinion on a range of topics, whether he has any expertise in the area or not.
After opining on topics such as marijuana legalization, education and poverty in the United States, the topic of “gun violence” was teed up for America’s foremost advocate of civilian disarmament.
Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said.
“These kids think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed,” Bloomberg said. “They just don’t have any long-term focus or anything. It’s a joke to have a gun. It’s a joke to pull a trigger.”
Except Mayor Mike is wrong. In fact, he’s not even close. Since 2000, minorities have committed about 55% of the murders in this country while whites were responsible for about 45%.
It’s a good thing Bloomberg didn’t put a bigoted, fake news item like that into a tweet or he might find himself banned from the platform or denounced as a white supremacist.
Tom King of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association pointed out the obvious:
“Mayor Bloomberg’s statement that black males should not be allowed to have guns echos similar sentiments made by southern white supremacists in the 19th century,” Tom King, the association’s president, said in a statement. “So called ‘Black Codes’ were enacted by various southern states to discriminate against black Americans and maintain the system of white supremacy that made slavery possible. These included restrictions on firearms possession.
“If a politician said this about anything other than guns, the mainstream media would be all over them,” Mr. King argued. “Michael Bloomberg isn’t just any politician, he is the leading voice for gun control in America. He should be held accountable for this slander.”
But, of course, he won’t. He isn’t a young Heisman Trophy winner or an Iraq War vet, after all. So he won’t be held to the same standard.
Michael Bloomberg is someone with whom the mainstream media agrees. They couldn’t be happier to help him further his gun-grabbing agenda, so calling him out on a statement like that isn’t in their interest.
And while Daddy Bloombucks may, in fact, be a bigot, let’s be fair…he isn’t a racist when it comes to guns. He’s always been an equal opportunity civilian disarmament advocate. Someone who wants to get firearms out of everyone’s hands (as long as they’re not wearing a uniform or working in his security detail). Mayor Mike’s just taking it slow and throwing his cash into the project, hoping to reach that ultimate goal down the road.
Nothing to see here. Move along.