Mayors Against Illegal Guns - Opposition From The NRA

Opposition From The NRA

The NRA opposes MAIG, on the ground that MAIG is not really against "illegal guns" but is in fact "anti-gun." They further argue that MAIG holds this position deceptively.

In early September 2009, the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) distributed a mass mailing to its members encouraging them to pressure their mayors to resign from Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The mailer read, in part, " Bloomberg created MAIG as a front group to lobby Congress to oppose important pro-gun reforms and support new federal gun control restrictions. And has joined this anti-gun Bloomberg crusade. It is critical that your mayor dissociate himself from this anti-gun group and you can do your part by contacting his office and urging him to withdraw his MAIG membership." The NRA has also issued web alerts to its members encouraging them to take this action.

The NRA lists 73 mayors on their website who have resigned from MAIG as of September 23, 2009. Newspapers have covered several of these resignations in more detail. In some cases, mayors have claimed MAIG used their name without permission.

In October 2009, NRA spokeswoman Rachel Parsons stated that "the coalition’s participating mayors from both large and small cities dropped from 463 to less than 400" as a result of the NRA's letter-writing campaign. Mayor Bloomberg, however, has said that while 60 mayors have left the organization since the NRA's campaign was launched, another 110 mayors have joined.

Some of the NRA's criticism has included attacks on Bloomberg, MAIG's co-founder. The NRA has described Mayor Bloomberg as “a billionaire, Boston-grown evangelist for the nanny state." NRA Contributing Editor James O. E. Norell has further stated, “Beholden to nothing except his own ambitions, the mayor has established himself as a kind of national gun-control vigilante.”