Andrew Arulanandam Scroos the Pooch

The NRA director of public affairs is unclear as to what a "right " is (that bit is at the end).

Jed at FreedomSight already addressed it, and in doing so, said "The rest of that article needs a good fisking." So, that's what I'm doing here (all emphasis mine).

Mayors band together against guns

Guess who figures prominently in this story? Hint: it's the high-profile NY politician not presently sleeping on the couch these days.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Interstate 95, which runs up the U.S. East Coast, is known to cops as the "Iron Pipeline" -- the conduit of choice for gun smugglers to move their hardware from the southern United States to New York city.

That's about as dramatic a moniker as I've seen in print. It should be said in detective Joe Friday's voice: "This is the pipeline, the Iron Pipeline. Mayors live in fear of all the evil guns travelling along this conduit of terror." Even I'm scared.

"Where is the outrage in this country? Well, mayors see it," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "We're the ones who have to go to the funerals. We're the ones that have to look somebody in the eye and say your spouse or your parent or your child is not going to come home."

I can smell the bullshit a mile away, can't you? The mayor of You Nork city does death notifications? Yeah, right. And I'm Albert Einstein (happy birthday, btw, Al). The only outrage here is your sanctimonius ass pretending to give a damn about us"little people".

Since Bloomberg became mayor in 2002, every gun homicide in the city -- including the killing of eight police officers -- has been committed with an illegal gun, police say.

Well no shit, Sherlock. When you outlaw guns, they become illegal. When you outlaw gun possession, possession of guns make them illegal, too*. Wow, do people really let this stuff slide?

Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns two years ago...

Their goal is to help police stop the flow of illegal guns used in crimes, and they want data on guns used in crimes to be made available to the public.

But that data is already available to the police, how do you intend to help? By suing gun stores and manufacturers till they're forced out of business?

"I don't think that the Founding Fathers envisioned people carrying automatic weapons under their coats in a central city," Bloomberg said.

Automatic weapons? Where? Sure does sound scary, and coupled with the fact that you folks like to link "assault weapons" to machine guns so the general public doesn't know the difference, I say you're not telling the truth.

"America has this freedom and it's very difficult for non-Americans to understand why we feel so passionately about it. It is the most unique freedom ever given to a people," said Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs for the NRA.

I'll quote Jed on this, as he did an excellent job:

Mr Arulanandam needs to understand that statements such as this support the mistaken notion that the Bill of Rights “grants” rights to the citizens. Or, worse, that somehow the government “gives” us this right. I hope that someone at the NRA will take a few moments with him to explain the foundational argument (see various Heller amici for reference) that the RKBA derives from the natural right of self preservation which was recognized by the founders as existing prior to, and without reliance upon, the ordination of a government, or its sanction by any government.

The mistaken notion that any true right can be given (and thus taken away) is a significant philosophical front in our fight against gun bans, and those who would institute them. We can’t afford to validate any portion of errant thinking in re. our rights.

Damn skippy. You'd think the NRA dude would have known this.

* - Yes, I know that technically, some people can have guns and carry permits in You Nork city, but they are few and far between. I, for one, could never get either if I lived there.