Mark Glaze, the head of Michael Bloomberg's ever-morphing anti-gun empire, has announced his departure from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group he helped form and steer since 2011.
For the last three years, Glaze labored to build an organization off the wealth of a billionaire who, while mayor of New York City, also exploited public resources to pursue his own nationwide antigun agenda. Despite the assets at its disposal, the group has so far accomplished little of note, other than incessant press coverage of its wealthy benefactor. Indeed, Bloomberg's anti-gun effort has, in its short life, seen public embarrassments, high-profile defections, and repeated attempts at rebranding. It even stooped to bullying similar groups after the Newtown tragedy to assure its own prominence. Now, with the group poised to make its biggest, most-publicized push yet for relevance, its creator and chief architect leaves it to its own devices. What does that say about the movement Glaze was supposed to create? What does that say about the group he formed? We don't know, frankly, other than this latest development is entirely consistent with how things have gone for Bloomberg’s gun control efforts to date.
Ironically, Glaze now plans to work as a consultant. If any more evidence of the American character for forgiveness, generosity, and support for the underdog were needed, the fact that Glaze can expect to make a comfortable living in his new profession should provide it. He's obviously the man to call when you need to leverage astronomical wealth and the unconditional support of the media, academic, entertainment, public health, and Coastal political establishments into colossal failure.
But, hey, none of this is personal. We know Glaze had a tough job in transforming a defining characteristic of American liberty into something people were supposed to consider hateful, sinister, and dangerous. His attempts to slander ordinary, law-abiding gun owners as having the blood of innocents on their hands were probably more indicative of desperation than of malice. He tried. And his failures, though considerable, were consistent with others who came before him, distinguished mainly by the fact that he had virtually unlimited resources at his disposal.
John Feinblatt, a former city hall staffer under then-Mayor Bloomberg, will step in as leader of Everytown for Gun Safety, the new umbrella organization for Bloomberg’s gun control front groups.
While Glaze may have been short on actual policy accomplishments during his tenure, his gun-hating former boss is doubling down with a $50 million pledge to bring his New York state of mind on gun control to the rest of the country. Gun owners should take seriously this well-funded assault on their rights and remember that only by standing together can they assure that Bloomberg’s newest antigun mastermind leaves as empty-handed as his last one.