Michael Bloomberg is “targeting” US senators over gun control, and at least one lawmaker thinks he should mind his own business.
The New York City mayor is spending $10 million of his own vast fortune for commercials in 13 states that are meant to pressure federal elected officials in both parties into supporting the Obama administration’s gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a so-called moderate Democrat, NRA member and avowed Second Amendment supporter, was elected in November by less than 1 percent of the vote in a state that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won in a landslide. She is the state’s former attorney general.
This is part of the senator’s reaction to the Bloomberg advertising barrage in her state:
“North Dakota continues to have one the highest rates of gun ownership and lowest incidences of gun crime in the country. Yet New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg insists on taking gun-driven crime statistics in his city and from other major cities and trying to force those numbers into a narrative that just does not fit in North Dakota.
“Frankly, there are far better uses for Mayor Bloomberg’s $156,000 than buying ads attacking a way of life he clearly does not understand… I do not need someone from New York City to tell me how to handle crime in our state.”
Heitkamp added that her state has a proud outdoor heritage which includes responsible gun ownership and proper training for hunters and farmers among others and for the personal protection of law-abiding citizens. She also reaffirmed support for keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and those persons who are dangerously mentally ill.
Back in January, she told ABC News that Obama’s gun control agenda was too extreme to pass Congress.