Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-gun stance has made him more than a few enemies.
Hizzoner has long supported gun control, but he kicked up his anti-firearm rhetoric at the start of his second term in 2006.
National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre called Bloomberg’s campaign “his own secret sting operation.
“He’d rather attack your rights than throw the book at criminals,” LaPierre said in 2007. “He wants to impose New York City-style gun bans on you all over the country.”
The powerful NRA secretly put the kibosh on Bloomberg girlfriend Diana Taylor’s bid for a top DC job in 2006 after he launched an all-out war on illegal guns.
And Bloomberg has traded barbs with the gun lobby and shamed pols who have voted in its favor.
He has sunk his own cash into his battle against the NRA, paying for national TV ads, assembling a crew of like-minded mayors to advocate for more stringent gun-control laws ,and donating cash to defeat pro-gun candidates in other states.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) told him to mind his own business in March after he announced a $12 million ad campaign, saying he “insists on taking gun-driven crime statistics in his city and from other major cities and trying to force those numbers into a narrative that just does not fit North Dakota.”
And Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said, “I don’t take gun advice from the mayor of New York City.”