Legal Commentary

Michael Bloomberg?s astroturf group

By David Kopel

Over at National Review Online, Ramesh Ponnuru notes a mailer from a group called ?Americans United for Safe Streets.? The mailer slams Republican House candidate Keith Fimian over the so-called ?gun show loophole.? Americans United for Safe Streets has a website, but other than providing an e-mail contact for a press spokeman, the site is quite opaque about what the organization really is, or who works there.

The explanation is simple. ?Americans United for Safe Streets? is not a grassroots organization of united Americans. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, of the $502,000 which the group raised in 2008, $500,000 came from Michael Bloomberg.

By the way, there is no such thing as a ?gun show loophole.? The laws for selling guns at gun shows are exactly the same as for selling guns anywhere else. The gun show bill which Bloomberg has been pushing in the current Congress is loaded with provisions unrelated to background checks at gun shows?such as authorizing the federal government to create a central registry of sales by federally licensed dealers from those dealers? retail storefronts.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on October 26, 2010 (boomark / email).