Sunday, April 22, 2007

Virginia Gun Giveaway

For weeks now, the owner of Bob Moats Sports Store in Midlothian, Virginia has been planning this week to award one of his customers a $900 handgun in what he is calling the Bloomberg Gun Giveaway.

The nomenclature reflects displeasure with New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has been trying to stop the flow of out-of-state guns into his city with lawsuits against merchants like Mr. Moats.

At midweek, Mr. Moats decided to put off the raffle until next month so as not to be “insensitive to the people of Blacksburg.”

Such delicacy of feeling, however, should not obscure Mr. Moats’ displeasure with the Mayor, whose picture adorns a gun rack in the store labeled “our worst enemy.”

Nor should it be taken as any concession to gun-control advocates. "They flew airplanes into the World Trade Center,” one of Mr. Moats’ employees points out, “but nobody is saying we should stop flying.”

Virginia Governor Tom Kaine apparently agrees, taking time from his grieving for the Virginia Tech victims to express “nothing but loathing for those who take the tragedy and make it political.”

Never mind that Bloomberg’s pressure has been going on for months and has tightened the procedures of dealers like the one who sold Cho Seung-hui his weapons, but obviously not enough.

Let’s hope the winner of Moats’ lottery is either in better mental health or a worse shot.

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