Are NYC taxpayers paying part of the bills for one of Micheal Bloomberg's pet projects --- Mayors Against Illegal Guns ? YES !

"The Weekly Standard" and "Politico" established a sponsorship relationship between Bloomberg's national gun control advocacy group and the City of New York

Earlier this week it was reported that the name “Mayors Against Illegal Guns”  which is well known as Mike Bloomberg’s gun-control arm and the group’s website is registered to, and handled by, official city government servers and staffers ( See "Michael Bloomberg gun control group site registered to NYC" by Maggie Haberman & Steve Friess, 6/21/13, Politico [http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/bloomberg-gun-group-site-registered-to-nyc-93182.html#ixzz2X1NXmGXd];  also see "NYC Taxpayers Help Sponsor Bloomberg’s Gun Control Group" by Jim Swift, 6/22/13, The Weekly Standard/The Blog [http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/nyc-taxpayers-help-sponsor-bloomberg-s-gun-control-group_736932.html] [both Politico and The Weekly Standard mentioned that questions about the CIty's sponsorship of  group's website server were first raised by Ace of Spades blogger John Ekdahl with a link to his blog]).

"The Weekly Standard" confirmed the City of New York’s involvement with the domain’s purchase and hosting by phone  in a call with Mayor Bloomberg’s press secretary Marc La Vorgna.  When specifically asked whether the purchase and hosting of the domain by New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications was an intentional act done on behalf of the mayor, La Vorgna replied that the purchase had “definitely been vetted.”

According to the mayor's spokesperson, The Mayors Against Illegal Guns website, like other Bloomberg efforts to lobby the federal government, was done in “his capacity as mayor.”  Mayor Bloomberg’s push for changes to federal firearms law was part of the “federal agenda for New York City.”  Then La Vorgna  made a comparison of the mayors natioanl anti-gun effort to others that Michael Bloomberg has undertaken, in his capacity as mayor along with other mayors, such as the effort to limit the use of food stamps in purchasing sugary drinks.

In the report by Poltico's Haberman and Friess, it was noted that  "...[T]he use of a city web server and city employees underscore what critics have long derided as a blurring of the lines between government resources and Bloomberg’s own multi-billion-dollar fortune, his company, and his pet interests in his three terms as mayor."

However, John McCarthy, a City Hall-based spokesman for Bloomberg,  who also handles elements of the  Mayors Against Illegal Guns' media output, responded with the following points:  "Mayor Bloomberg is the co-chair of the coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns....  Its activities are in the interest of keeping New York City safe. He is acting in his capacity as mayor of New York City....  Just as when he advocates for a bill in Albany that we want passed he is acting in his capacity as mayor, because he believes the bill is in the city’s interests. That is the prerogative of any mayor.”