Liberty For All

by CCRKBA staff 

With the convictions of two former New York police officers, one a retired NYPD officer and the other an auxiliary sergeant, for drug offenses, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today suggested that anti-gun Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his sights set on the wrong people to disarm.

“Instead of disarming law-abiding American citizens,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “perhaps Mayor Bloomberg should keep guns out of the hands of some cops on his public payroll.”

Former police officer Alfredo Rivera was carrying his department-issue 9mm pistol when he and then-Sgt. Rafael Jimenez agreed to move 10 kilograms - about 20 pounds - of cocaine to a buyer in the Bronx at a meeting in January 2010. Two months later, again armed with the same pistol, Rivera showed up at a Long Island warehouse picking up what appeared to be cocaine, and then transported it to the Bronx. Jimenez pulled a 127-month prison sentence and Rivera will be sentenced on May 18, according to an FBI press release.

“Bloomberg is running around the country, worrying about privately-owned firearms,” Gottlieb observed, “while the city was issuing guns to dirty cops. The activities of Rivera and Jimenez are an insult to every honest and decent hard-working police officer in New York City. Bloomberg’s national campaign against private gun ownership is an insult to every law-abiding gun owner in the country; people who wouldn’t dream of running drugs like this pair of city-armed rogue cops.

“Mayor Bloomberg likes to hold all gun owners responsible for crimes committed by people with guns,” he continued. “He routinely smears the reputations of reputable gun dealers because a few have, perhaps inadvertently, violated some gun regulation. By the same logic, he should be held responsible for crimes committed by sworn officers, including an auxiliary sergeant, who engage in criminal activity under the cover of their badges and guns.

“If Michael Bloomberg wants to attack criminal activity by armed outlaws,” Gottlieb concluded, “we suggest he stick to his own turf and concentrate on his own people rather than citizens in other states. He’s not their mayor, he’s not their president and he’s not their king. He’s just become a big pain in their necks.”

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.