Tonight on the show, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg talks about his campaign for gun safety in our very armed country.
Most recently, Mr. Bloomberg sent undercover investigators to buy guns at a gun show in Arizona.
Bloomberg's office sent eight private investigators to the Crossroads of the West Gun Show at the state fairgrounds in Phoenix the weekend of Jan. 22-23. The investigation was conducted in response to the Jan. 8 shooting near Tucson that killed six and wounded 13, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
The investigators bought a Glock 17 9 mm handgun without a background check and two 33-round extended magazines from private sellers. Investigators also bought a Sig Sauer Pro 9 mm handgun and a Smith & Wesson handgun from two private sellers who continued with the sales even after being told by the undercover buyers that they probably could not pass a background check.
The Arizona AG accuses Mayor Bloomberg of conducting a publicity stunt. Tonight, Rachel asks all about it. This'll be fun. We'll see you at 9 PM Eastern.
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While I don't see this as a publicity stunt, I do see it as a gimme -- gun shows across the country are like this, and it's a loophole through which a lot of gang and cartel sales happen, always has been. Same with militia purchases of weapons and ammunition. in Some ways a waste of time and money, really, as the data's already available for anyone who cares.
That doesn't make an ounce of sense, and you know it.
AZ had only 6 deaths by gunshot?
Bullpucky.
Bloomberg is a practical smart politician; as a result he's bound to be criticized.
Mayor Bloomberg makes eminent sense; too bad he doesn't run for higher office.
Why hello right wing troll...
How did you make the leap from, "Maybe we should have restrictions" to "No guns for anyone!"
Somehow I think it's someone else who's the idiot.
If guns save lives, imagine how many lives could be saved if we all had our own thermonuclear arsenals.
denverlawyer you're an a-hole! keep up your good work - just maybe you too might find yourself arrested for playing with your glock in public!
Personally, I think gun shows should be banned. If you want to buy a gun, I can't think of any city in the US that doesn't have a gun store or a store that sells guns among other things within at least fifty miles of where people live. Hell, Walmart sells guns and god knows there's one of those every three blocks. They're almost as common here in the midwest as churches.
Gun stores are regulated (theoretically), whereas these gun shows clearly aren't. I don't see how it impedes anyone's second amendment rights to have to go to a store to purchase a weapon instead of a fair.
No, because multiple studies have shown that you're more likely to get your bad self shot by the gun you use to attempt to defend yourself than successfully fend off an attack.
OK. Denverlawyer is clearly a tr0ll. Let's all resolve not to feed him.
The AZ AG should have just kept his mouth shut since he obviously didn't have any substantive criticism of Bloomberg's actions.
So what if it is a "publicity stunt?" Of course, it is! There should be all kinds of publicity stunts concerning gun shows and what is allowed to happen at them. Most people in the U.S. have no idea.
Great "get" for an interview. Should be some fiesty stuff. I love that they sent NY investigators undercover to AZ. Now they should do it to West Virginia!
Have to tell you: I shut that one off.
People chatting on the set? People walking by--on camera?
Rachel you're better than that, but your production team clearly isn't. The aforementioned, plus messed-up graphics are a regular feature of your show.
There's such a thing as ultra-democracy, and it becomes slovenliness very quickly.
Guns TAKE lives, Denverlawyer! It did not SAVE the six people killed in Arizona. Guns were invented for one purpose, and one purpose only - to murder people and kill animals. Guns were one of the worst inventions of all time, with countless people's lives having been taken, most of whom would have otherwise lived. This country needs strict gun control laws like civilized countries have. To say that guns save lives is total nonsense!!
Guns don't take lives people do. If you were to do a little research in the truth you would find that there were more gun related homicides by CRIMINALS (not guns) during the assault/large capacity magazine ban. Since the gun ban restriction has been removed the homicide rate in the U.S. by "gun violence" has dropped tremendously. I own guns and many "high capacity" magazines, I have no intention in going out and killing people in which the mayor of New York seems to think that is what these mags are for. May I make a suggestion to you, please go out to a local gun shooting range with proper handling, shooting and safety instruction, I guarantee you will look at and will have a profuse respect for the firearm in which you are trying to defame. I used to have the same mentality, "who needs guns, especially those 'assault' style or those semi-automatic kinds all they do is kill". I am also asking you to please research why our founding fathers, who so carefully and with heart felt passion, put into our constitution the 2nd amendment (The right to keep and bear arms). You will be astonished at what you will find, not many people will pursue the truth, but if you do, it will forever change your opinion on the right to keep and bear arms, along with many other foresight's the founding fathers had envisioned for our country and also warned us not to do ,in which our country is experiencing right now. Please do your own investigation, Google Wallbuilders to start your search for the truth, it will change the way you see America and steer you in the way our founders saw America!! God speed!!
Unbelievable. A 2nd Amendment fundamentalist missionary. Disgusting. Apparently guns are no longer just phallic symbols. They are now gods.
Bonnie- Arizona rattle snakes are worse than their guns. When they coil up and rattle at the mayor they display the rationality of beligerant Gilamonsters. Sadly, they are in denial of this
Arizona's human rattle snakes are worse than their 31 shooters. When they coil up and rattle at the mayor of NYC they display the instincts of Gila Monsters. Sadly, they are in denial of this
mr hancock - i made the nauseating mistake to visit your right wing gun toting white supremacist religious sect's site - extremists like you and those of you in "ball busters" oops i mean "sh*t kickers", oh i mean "glock suckers" - whatever it is - should be placed on a watch list! you guys are offensive!
You no what, this is a bunch of BS. I've been watching the Maddow show for a couple of years, but this gun thing is ridiculous. Most of you have probably never been to a gun show, you should go and try to buy a gun illegally, I would say you probably couldn't make that purchase. You know what, this is America if you don't like guns, then don't buy one, but leave my rights to have one alone. I shoot once a month. I don't hunt, I don't kill People, I just like the sport of target practice. There's a whole community of people that just shoot for sport, look up ispc in google. Now you may not like it, but I do. I happen to have a 33 round clip for my Glock and it's not for killing, it's for saving time loading clips when I'm at the range, that's all. If that guy in AZ would have used a 4x4 truck and just ran over people would you be trying to ban trucks too. And you know what 10,000 people are murdered by guns in this country a year, that's 10,000 out of 300,000,000 that's only 0.0279271 of a person per 1,000 people, so if you really want to help people there is other things you could do, like help fight heart disease or cancer, or make cars safer to drive. To me you're just as bad as the Gop, when you try to scare lefty's about GUNS.
Chad, I get where you're coming from. I really do. But consider this: This is not the first incident of high capacity magazines being used in a mass murder in the US. The senator who is sponsoring the bill to ban them? Her husband was murdered and son grievously wounded in another shoot out involving high capacity mags.
Now consider all the school shootings there have been. Well over a dozen. It's only a matter of time before a high capacity magazine is used again, and if it's used in a school shooting, the casualties would increase ten fold.
I get that you're a responsible gun owner. And I get that you probably feel that you and other responsible gun owners are being made to pay for the crimes of the lunatics. But if you look at the numbers, America's casualty rates from guns are significantly higher than almost any other modern country. Lawmakers are merely trying to find ways to fix that.
I would think that a slight inconvenience like having to pause to reload sooner at a gun range would be worth preventing crazy people from getting high capacity mags. And if the law passed is like the one in the Assault Weapons Ban, then you would be able to keep your magazine if you already own one, you just won't be able to go buy another one.
I think this concern over guns is drastically different from GOP fear mongering, because this is concern over a real, actual issue. Did you not see the show when Rachel ticked off all the shooting sprees that happened in America just during Loughner's lifetime? And that wasn't even all of them, just some of the "highlights." It's not fear mongering if there really is something to fear.
I've heard there are such people who are "responsible" gun owners - I play with my big pistol every day - fortunately i don't need a 2nd amendment to do it! The 2nd amendment should be amended to comply with life in the 21st century - pardon my anti - american insistence that the 2nd is an offense to any patriotic citizen! go play with your balls and leave your glocks out of it!!! as long as this hideous group of glock suckers are insisting on their perverted "rights" - i wish them nothing but the violence they pursue to be visited upon them a thousand-fold!!
Ok... what was the word RM used during the interview to describe the gun issue in DC politics as something that no one want to touch..... GREAT word ... NEVER heard it before!!
Yes, but the Arizona Attorney General is Tom Horne, and he just doesn't like his own publicity stunts (HB2281 anybody?) (that's the ban on teaching Ethnic Studies in public schools) being upstaged by anybody.
Why doesn't this clown stay home and do an in depth investigation on his cronies on Wall Street? How many more trillions will disappear down that sewer system? Of course nobody dies when their fortunes are stolen, unless of course you consider suicide, death.. Or heart attacks or stroke do to the stress of financial ruin, death.. Hey Bloomberg, we don't like you, we don't need you, and we don't want you outside of NYC.
and we ny'ers want nothing more than your sh*tty state to secede!
And exactly which sh**ty state is mine oh great brain of the city.. God, don't you libs have some welfare checks to cash, or hand out, or something?
And they didnt even ask for their green cards. shocking.
Great story Rachel. Keep up the good work.
And Um.... What they heck was going on in the background of your show(over the Mayor's shoulder). I was so impressed that you and Mayor Bloomberg didn't turn around and yell "shut up!" I would have.
What the hell is the Mayor of New York City doing sending undercover investigators to another state? I think THAT is way out of line, Rachel.
I appreciate you like Bloomberg and seem to be fearful of firearms, but I read elsewhere that it is easier to get an illegal gun in New Jersey than a legal gun. How about he stick to the East coast and butt out of the West? At least stick to his region, and solve those problems before fixing everything on his way to a presidential run.
This is cheap stuff to whale upon, and this politician, like most, needs to clean his own house.
I am a progressive, and my wife is a progressive. She delivers babies, and I have worked in critical care, and surgery. We have our liberal credentials, but you know something? We both think the 2nd amendment is a personal right to firearms, and that this is simply part of America. Read the literally bloody constitution.
It is easy for people to get illegal firearms anywhere in the world; I would rather that we, as citizens, have a right to access to firearms with all that that entails, risks and everything, than not.
You cannot have liberty without risk. We choose liberty, progressiveness, and risk. Maybe we need to divide at the Mississippi Ocean.
Well except that many states east of the Mississippi River (Ocean?) think and act plenty non-progressive and are not anti-gun.
Gun control is popular in some Northeast states (but not all - Maine, Vermont, NH for example) and is popular in California (some districts) and some Pacific NW districts (but not all). Look at the co-sponsers of McCarthys's bill HR 308, all the usual suspects mostly from NY, Cali and assorted districts that are secure (for now) Liberal Democrat.
BTW this bill will never get out of the House Judiciary committee. And way to many "moderate" "pro-gun" democrat senators up for re-election that won't touch it in the senate (Webb- VA, Manchin -WV, Testor- MT, Nelson- FL, Nelson- Neb) and some "progressive" senators from states that sent Republicans for the first time in 2010. Yep, gun control is out of ammo currently.
I'm kind of surprised that someone who has surely had to clean up after people toting guns would be such a stark, no-constraints-at-all 2nd Amendment supporter. How many people on your OR table and in your CCU have been there because of gun violence?
I don't think anything that Rachel's advocating is too extreme. She's not even talking gun control, really. Why does any average citizen need a thirty round clip? I mean, come on, let's be serious.
And as for the Mayor, yes, perhaps what he did was unorthodox, but do you see anyone else doing it? The AG of Arizona is pro-gun, so he wouldn't have conducted a sting. It goes without saying that Brewer wouldn't. Furthermore, if you can do this at a gun show in AZ, what's to say you can't do it at gun shows in every other US state? The Mayor's actions could cause other states to do their own stings at gun shows and help constrict illegal sales.
You're absolutely right Cora - Rachel doesn't go anywhere near far enough - I think guns should be banned, if not entirely, then with extraordinary limitations and at such expense they will be rare! This could be done - not in my lifetime unfortunately, but I will fight these perverts who have a "strangle hold" on the decency of this country until I die! I wish no more than to watch these gun loving idiots to live and die by the passions they so fervently protect!
Anon, you are doing nothing to advance the discussion of any thread you post on. You are so caustic you make me look like a kind little old lady. If you occasionally post something vitriolic because you're passionate about it, that's one thing. But it seems like every single one of your posts is so polarizing that there's no discussing anything with you.
As for a complete ban on guns, that's just as wing nutty a view as "no limits of any kind on guns." It's people with polarizing stances like yours (on both sides) that prevent sensible solutions from being discussed.
I'm from Missouri, and while I do not personally own a gun, I know many people who do who are responsible gun owners. I've never been hunting, but there are people in the area who go hunting and enjoy it. Others hunt out of necessity and a ban on guns could create serious financial problems for them as the meat they get during deer season helps them out a lot.
Very little in this world is black and white, Anon. Rather, life operates more in shades of gray. Trying to assert black and white views in a world of gray makes you come off as just as offensive and irritating as the far-right kooks.
Sorry for being blunt. You can take or leave my words as you will.
Bloomberg is simply a rich idiot, NYC has its own problems yet he wants to waste NY tax payer dollars to investigate gun shows in Arizona. Just because NY has some of the most ridiculous anti-2nd amendment laws, doesn't mean every other state should follow right along. You're the mayor of NYc, mind your own damn business and keep your richy rich hands out of other states business. Talk to your wallstreet buddies as I am sure a bunch of them are making a ton of money on the profits reported by gun and ammunition companies. One last thing I'd like to say, we have tax loop holes that congress doesn't fix and we've been crying about them for years and years. Just because some idiot went on a killing spree doesn't mean everyone else should pay.
Yes! What do we export from America? Bloody weapons of war, one of the top three items of international commerce; built by and profiting the big corporations, who contribute to the honorable mayor... Methinks an agenda with a foul odor is afoot.
Maybe we should require that all households have a firearm, like in Switzerland. Good for business, and certainly would slow down home invasions!! Requiring training for everyone would also help. Fewer accidents.
So what if the government gets it's act together and this database actually gets populated with people who should not be allowed to buy a gun. How does the gun seller in their store or at a gun show know who's in the database? Is there an app for that?
Obama will stand up for gun control...at some point...still TBD...probably after the 2012 election...right after he secures NY's votes and the anti-gun votes...which he already has now. Fascinating! Come to think of it maybe he won't stand up after all.
Mr. Monk
Like I said, many will not seek the truth. If you do, you too will understand.
Thomas Jefferson Quoted " When a government is big enough to give you anything you want, it is big enough to take everything you have."
This is only one of many reasons why the 2nd amendment was conceived and written, with important reasons & explanations, into our constitution.
Please do your own investigation, and you to will understand. Start with Goggling Wallbuilders. God speed. And do not be afraid!
You might want to do your research over again since Thomas Jefferson never said that. That quote is from President Gerald Ford in August 1974 and has been attributed to Jefferson incorrectly.
"Goggling"? Oy!
I commend my mayor for going into such a turbulent and dangerous country. I wish his safe return! I really don't care what happens to that country itself, but any voice of reason may help it to sustain itself - oops, I was just informed it hasn't seceded yet - what a shame!!!
Another brilliant post by a troll from the city where there is never any crime, where there are no homeless, where the mafia(both Italian and Russian) doesn't exist, where the financial wizards on Wall Street have never committed any indiscretion, and where there is absolutely nothing for the lord high master Bloomberg to do but storm the countryside demanding we all bow down to his edicts. But perhaps, oh great thinker from the big city, you could explain the following to the rest of us :
•New York City officials, including Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, tout New York as the nation's safest big city. In 2009, New York had its fewest killings since it began using its current tracking system in 1963. Yet city crime reports through November indicate that homicides have jumped 14.4% and rape is up 15.6% this year, compared with the same period last year. The numbers don't approach those recorded during the 1990s, but are notable in a city that has been a model for reducing crime.
Julie Menin, chairwoman of New York's community development board representing Lower Manhattan, says the jump in violence and the threat of new terror attacks have created a "heightened level of anxiety" among residents, despite the public safety gains of the past two decades.
Please anonymouslee, keep your thoughts and your mayor to yourself..