Poetic Justice

Sometimes the universe is just.

A group misnamed Mayors Against Illegal Guns has been desperately trying, with the help of anti-gun Nanny-Stater Michael Bloomberg, to undermine the right of the people to keep and bear arms since 2006. I say misnamed because their hostility is actually to civilian-owned firearms, making it more accurate to call them Mayors Against Gun-Owners.

Last fall Bloomberg and his fellow gun-haters were dealt a major blow when two Colorado State Senators — one of them the Senate President — were successfully booted from office in a recall election. A third senator, Evie Hudak, managed to avoid a similar fate — but only by resigning before voters could also send her — pardon the pun — packing.

Mayor Bloomberg gave $350,000 to save these Senators from the voters. Overall, opponents of the recall actually ended up outspending the pro-recall/pro-gun side by 6 to 1. Not that it mattered.

Before the election one of the recalled Senators, Angela Giron, said, "if [Mayors Against Illegal Guns] lose even one of these seats, they might as well fold up." A few days later she was out of a job, along with Senate President John Morse.

Sadly, Ms. Giron's advice has not been heeded; Mayors Against Illegal Guns is still out there, working to undermine people's rights. 

But events have conspired to show us another way in which anti-gun fanatics threaten decent people: Sometimes they literally threaten decent people. One member of Bloomberg's group, James Schiliro, Mayor of Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, was expelled — wait for it — for committing a crime with a gun.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that on January 13 Mr. Schiliro "was sentenced to 10 to 20 months for an alcohol-fueled episode last February in which he had a police car bring a former neighbor — a 20-year-old to whom he said he was attracted — to his home, made him drink wine, and refused to let him leave for 3 1/2 hours.

"During the encounter, Schiliro threatened to kill himself and fired a gun into a stack of papers. The man eventually left and later called police." Mr. Schiliro was convicted for "recklessly endangering another person, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, official oppression, and furnishing liquor to a minor."

The people of Marcus Hook picked a real winner. They're not alone.

Not content to work tirelessly through the normal machinations of the political process to deprive people of their rights, Mr. Schiliro also sought to do so extra-legally — using a gun.

Anti-gun fanatics would have us believe that everyday folks just can't be trusted with firearms. Perhaps they're just projecting.