Bloomberg dumps $50M into new gun control organization: Everytown for Gun Control

Mayor Bloomberg rolled out his latest gun control creation today: Everytown for Gun Control.

In the NY Times story announcing the new organization, there are some interesting paragraphs…

Michael R. Bloomberg, making his first major political investment since leaving office, plans to spend $50 million this year building a nationwide grass-roots network to motivate voters who feel strongly about curbing gun violence, an organization he hopes can eventually outmuscle the National Rifle Association.

In other words, Bloomberg is going to try to buy a grass-roots network with $50M.

We chuckled.

Okay, we guffawed.

For all his money, clearly Michael R. Bloomberg doesn’t understand how grass-roots work.  You don’t buy grass-roots support.

Mr. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, said gun control advocates need to learn from the N.R.A. and punish those politicians who fail to support their agenda — even Democrats whose positions otherwise align with his own.

“They say, ‘We don’t care. We’re going to go after you,’ ” he said of the N.R.A. “ ‘If you don’t vote with us we’re going to go after your kids and your grandkids and your great-grandkids. And we’re never going to stop.’ ”

He added: “We’ve got to make them afraid of us.”

You’re going to make politicians afraid of you?

You can only do that if you can motivate people to take action.  Last time I checked, there aren’t a half-dozen grassroots gun control organizations in Illinois running successful monthly meetings, grass-roots action, highly trafficked websites and all-volunteer endeavors from erecting highway signs to training people about gun safety.

The $50 million could be significant: In recent years, the N.R.A. has spent only $20 million annually on political activities…

The group will zero in on 15 target states, from places like Colorado and Washington State, where gun control initiatives have advanced recently, to territory that is likely to be more hostile like Texas, Montana and Indiana. They have set a goal of signing up one million new supporters this year on top of the 1.5 million they already have.

Then again, he could just be squandering $50M, which to him is chump change.

Mr. Bloomberg was introspective as he spoke, and seemed both restless and wistful. When he sat down for the interview, it was a few days before his 50th college reunion. His mortality has started dawning on him, at 72. And he admitted he was a bit taken aback by how many of his former classmates had been appearing in the “in memoriam” pages of his school newsletter.

We wonder if all this “philanthropy” of late is related to a cancer diagnosis.

But if he senses that he may not have as much time left as he would like, he has little doubt about what would await him at a Judgment Day. Pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity and smoking cessation, he said with a grin: “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

Hmmm.  If that’s not a definition of one of the seven cardinal sins, I’m not sure what is.  What an arrogant bastard.

From Wiki:

In almost every list, pride (Latin, superbia), or hubris (Greek), is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and the source of the others. It is identified as believing that one is essentially better than others, failing to acknowledge the accomplishments of others, and excessive admiration of the personal self (especially holding self out of proper position toward God). Dante’s definition was “love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbour”. In Jacob Bidermann’s medieval miracle play, Cenodoxus, pride is the deadliest of all the sins and leads directly to the damnation of the titulary famed Parisian doctor. In perhaps the best-known example, the story of Lucifer, pride (his desire to compete with God) was what caused his fall from Heaven, and his resultant transformation into Satan. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the penitents are burdened with stone slabs on their necks which force them to keep their heads bowed.