Last we checked, Michael Bloomberg was the mayor of New York City, but it appears he has his sights set on running some of our nation’s southern states, Washington Times reports:

“Take Virginia,” [Mr. Feinblatt, Bloomberg’s Chief of Staff] said, at a press conference at City Hall. “That state requires no background checks for private sales and the legislature in that state even recently rolled back their state laws by stripping their one-gun-a-month purchase limit.”

Other states faulted by Mr. Feinblatt: South Carolina, for contributing 251 “crime guns” in 2011, he said. And Georgia, Alabama and Texas – all states that allow for online gun sales absent background checks.

There’s a lot of misinformation here so let’s get to unpacking.  Yes, in these states it is legal to purchase a firearm from a private individual—even through an online sale.  But, it isn’t as if a customer can order any gun online and have it shipped no questions asked.  It’s also illegal to sell a gun to someone that isn’t qualified to own one.

And if we take a look at violent crime rates in these states, they happen to be on par with every other state.  Not only that, they are much lower than “gun free zones” such as Chicago and Washington D.C.

Of course Bloomberg conveniently ignores these points and shifts the focus back to his city, in some backwards attempt to justify his nationwide spending to end gun ownership. We’ve mentioned Bloomberg’s rough month here and here, but it seems like he’ll keep fighting despite the rest of his party tabling the issue till 2014.