After several months on the campaign trail, Michael Bloomberg was finally asked a tough question about his support for gun control on Monday night, and the anti-gun billionaire’s response was a perfect encapsulation of his arrogance and elitism when it comes to the Second Amendment rights of Americans.
The question came during a Fox News town hall event in Manassas, Virginia, where orange “Guns Save Lives” stickers from the Virginia Citizens Defense League could be seen on the shirts of many of those in attendance. Clarke Chitty, a Virginia resident and Tulsi Gabbard supporter, asked Bloomberg how he could justify his attempts to prevent average Americans from protecting themselves with a firearm when he has an army of private security guards equipped with the same guns and magazines Bloomberg wants to ban for everyone else.
“Does your life matter more than mine, or my family’s, or these people?” Chitty concluded to applause from the audience.
“Look,” said Bloomberg as the cheers died down, “I probably get 40 to 50 threats every week, okay? And some of them are real. That just happens when you’re the mayor of New York City or if you’re very wealthy and you’re campaigning for president of the United States. You get a lot of threats. So, I have a security detail, I pay for it all myself, and you know, they’re all retired police officers who are very well trained in firearms.”
In other words, I’m more important than you, so I need my armed security. You peasants, on the other hand, don’t need a firearm to protect yourself.
That arrogance was bad enough, but Bloomberg wasn’t finished.
“The Second Amendment gives you the right to bear arms. Nobody suggests that we’re going to change the Constitution. Even if we wanted to I don’t think we could get it done so nobody’s going to take away your right to bear arms.”
Bloomberg then talked about how the only thing he wants to do is to pass universal background checks, which is another outright lie.
First off, the Constitution doesn’t give us the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment protects the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms. Secondly, Michael Bloomberg has already taken away people’s right to bear arms by supporting the restrictive permitting system in New York City that prevents the average New Yorker from exercising that right. In New York City, the right to bear arms is only exercised by the powerful and the politically connected, and those who can afford to bribe corrupt members of the city’s licensing bureau.
As Bloomberg rambled about trying to get universal background checks passed, neither of the moderators from Fox interrupted Bloomberg to correct or challenge him on his statements. I don’t expect Bret Baier and Martha McCallum to know the intricacies of New York gun laws, but Bloomberg’s support for things like a national gun licensing system and a ban on so-called assault weapons is prominently displayed on his campaign website. It was incredibly disappointing that the moderators allowed Bloomberg to lie about his anti-gun agenda without any pushback at all.
The truth is that despite what Bloomberg said during his town hall Monday evening, he doesn’t believe that you have a right to keep and bear arms, and he’s done everything in his power to prevent as many Americans as possible from fully exercising their rights. If elected, he would continue to treat the Second Amendment as if it didn’t exist at all, continuing to ensure that his wealthy and powerful buddies could protect themselves with armed guards while the average American would be denied their ability to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Michael Bloomberg’s presidential ambitions may end on Super Tuesday (though he told the town hall audience that he believes he can win the nomination at a brokered convention), but his gun control efforts will continue on long after his presidential campaign fades away. It’s vitally important that gun owners and Second Amendment supporters do all they can this year to defeat Blooomberg the candidate, as well as the candidates that Bloomberg the anti-gun billionaire will be backing this November.
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