Bloomberg’s Foot

One of the questions about Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign against guns is whether he is going to end up, in respect of his presidential aspirations for 2008, shooting himself in the foot. The mayor, backed by his corporation counsel and police commissioner, held yesterday another one of his high-caliber press presentations to announce yet a new round of lawsuits against what he represents are “irresponsible” gun dealers. We have way too much respect for the mayor and his police commissioner to dismiss their campaign out of hand. We’d even go so far as to say that we’re prepared to see the authorities push for an expansive interpretation of their constitutional mandate if it helps keep down violence against ordinary citizens and against police officers here in the city. But the mayor’s credibility is not so high that New Yorkers need to accept everything he says at face value. His gun cases have ended up in the court of a federal judge, Jack Weinstein, in whom it is hard for many New Yorkers, or the gun dealers being attacked here, to repose much confidence in terms of founding principles.*