Mayor Bryan Maher [my emphasis]:

I’m the mayor of Walden, NY, just starting my third term. In 2009, while attending a statewide mayoral conference, I was asked to sign a “petition” affirming my support for safer communities. I signed, because who would not be for safer communities? What I found out later is that my name was being used in anti-gun propaganda to further the personal agenda of Mayor Bloomberg.

The organization never asked for permission or asked for approval to use my name to promote their agenda. Never was any information disclosed to me about the organization being in favor of gun control or that they would use my position as Mayor to spend millions of dollars to try to take away the rights of legal gun owners. I, like several other Mayors around the country were defrauded by Bloomberg and MAIG.

Once I learned of their deceptive ways, it took several months to contact the organization as they concealed information about the people behind the group. After several attempts and requests to be removed, I did finally receive a call from a representative of the organization attempting to “buy me off” by promising political donations in return for my continued membership.

It was not until I declined this payoff, that my name was finally removed.

My hope is that more elected officials will tell their stories of how this self-serving fraud of an organization deceived public officials. MAIG membership has been reduced in half as Mayors around the country realize the lies and deceit of Mayor Bloomberg. It is time for Bloomberg to tell the truth about his organization and apologize to the hundreds of Mayors he used.

These tactics — buying off legislators and mayors or misrepresenting themselves in the first place — has led to what are clearly unconstitutional gun control laws being passed in states where many outside of the central liberal enclaves (and high crime areas. Imagine!) rely on firearms for ranching, farming, or merely for protection of their homes, families, persons, and property, in addition to their sporting uses, be it competitive shooting or hunting (which is itself a conservationist endeavor) .

Here in Colorado, we watched first hand as the Democrats, many of whom clearly had no idea what it was they were voting on or even talking about, ran roughshod over the will of Coloradans at the behest of Bloomberg lobbyists, leading to recall elections (that people like Rick Moran oppose, naturally) and even a growing movement for the donut that surrounds the empty Denver/Boulder hole in Colorado, to create its own state.

The anti-gun campaign is not new.  It is merely perpetually opportunistic.  And now it has a sugar daddy who, as a New York Mayor, has taken de facto control of many outside states’ governorships in exchange for big money and political favors.

And he’s been joined in his efforts by people higher up in the federal government, from the President on down.

It’s who they are.  It’s what they do.

But that doesn’t mean we have to accept it.  And many of us simply won’t.

(h/t Guido and Geoff B)