BELLEVUE, WA – After one bodega operator was jailed for using an unlicensed handgun to kill an armed robber and another merchant without a gun was slain – while police concentrated on issuing citations for technical infractions of obscure city laws – the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) called upon New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to “get their priorities straight or get out.”
“New York City hasn’t gone to the dogs,” observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “The Big Apple has gone completely insane. While Bloomberg and Kelly have their cops running around issuing citations to a pregnant woman for resting on a subway stairwell, and a Bronx man for sitting on a milk crate, people are getting robbed and killed.
“The New York Post’s coverage of two Harlem bodega operators is the latest example of a city consumed by gun control chaos,” Gottlieb stated. “Because 69-year-old Jose Acosta defended himself with an un-registered handgun and shot a thug who might have killed him, he goes to jail. Mohamed Dramy obeyed the law, didn’t have a gun, and he’s in the morgue.
“It’s no surprise,” Gottlieb added, “that beat cops are reportedly furious. Even the New York Daily News noted that cops are feeling pressure from Bloomberg’s administration to ‘churn out money-making summonses’. This is happening while merchants are being murdered, or jailed for fighting back.”
New York in the past several months has fallen under intense scorn for jailing citizens who defended themselves or their families with unlicensed handguns. The latest cases involving the Harlem bodega operators are an outrage, Gottlieb said.
“New York’s gun control laws are at the root of this chaos,” Gottlieb said. “Bloomberg and Kelly think that fighting crime means rousting old men and pregnant women while thugs take control of the streets. New Yorkers deserve the right to defend themselves, and New York cops need to focus on perps, not pregnant women.”