{"id":1161,"date":"2011-12-15T16:44:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T21:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/blog\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2011-12-15T16:44:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T16:52:35","slug":"bloomberg-internet-gun-sting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual"},"content":{"rendered":"<table style=\"margin: 10px;width: 430px\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div class=\"block\" style=\"padding-bottom:30px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/administration\/user\/GunsAmericaRegistration.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\" title=\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/subscribe+long+banner_0011.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"block\"><a href=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/gunsamerica-compete-stats-dec-15-2011.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\" title=\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/gunsamerica-compete-stats-dec-15-20111.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\"  border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"block\" style=\"padding-bottom:10px\"><em>This is a screen capture (click to enlarge) of the current GunsAmerica statitistics on Compete.com. Notice that despite our failure to sponsor a NASCAR team, and our failure to advertise in the myriad print magazines nobody under 65 reads anymore, there are no gun buying and selling websites with more unique visitors than us according to their calculations.  By our estimation, using the industry standard Google Analytics, GunsAmerica has recently crossed the 3 million  unique visitors per month threshhold.  Yet GunsAmerica is not mentioned in the news story, nor has anyone from the media or law enforcement contacted us about the New York City sting operation.  We are in regular contact with the US Department of Justice and for nearly 15 years have supported BATFE and all law enforcement, often calling on them to help us with scammers as well.  <\/em><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:15px\" align=\"left\">\n<p>by Paul Helinski<br \/>\nOwner, GunsAmerica.com<br \/>\nWhere America Buys and Sells Guns <\/p>\n<p>\nWe don&#8217;t do a lot of opinion pieces in the GunsAmerica Blog. This is the first one in fact.  New York City&#8217;s mayor Bloomberg announced the <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/investigation-finds-62-private-gun-sellers-perform-background\/story?id=15154436#.TupEqPJup8F\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\" title=\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-article\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">results of a new sting conducted by his office today<\/a>, focusing on internet gun sales.  He is using the same tactics he has employed to go after legal gun sales at gun shows, implying that American gun owners are by nature dishonest and willing to break the law to sell their firearms.   Would you break a federal law for $450, or even ten times that?  Probably not. American gun owners are law abiding citizens and proud of our long history of supporting law enforcement and the laws as they are written, even if we disagree with them.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n As usual, the facts are skewed all over the place, vague where Bloomberg chooses to be vague, and specific and factual where he has an anecdotal soundbyte or video clip he can play. Thankfully they do not appear to involve GunsAmerica sellers, but this is only the tip of the iceberg and if we don&#8217;t say something nobody will.  Unfortunately Diane Sawyer and the talking heads at ABC News don&#8217;t question the sketchy report as usual, and we have received no questions from them, from law enforcement or from Mayor Bloomberg&#8217;s office to request for comments.   CNN seems to have lost the picture of me from 1999, but you may remember that Chuck Schumer tried to regulate internet gun sales back then.  The article is <a href=\"https:\/\/www-cgi.cnn.com\/US\/9904\/29\/on-line.gun.sales\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\" title=\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-CNN-article\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>, and they even brought me into a little secret CNN studio in Boston to do an interview.  As I explained to Mr. Schumer back then, the gun grabbers just don&#8217;t have their facts straight.  American gun owners by and large are overwhelmingly honest and law abiding. At least Schumer in 1999 wasn&#8217;t deliberately manipulating the facts for political gains.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nI wonder why GunsAmerica is not mentioned? Could it be that Bloomberg targeted unknown, old, dead and dying websites that have no supervision over who comes and goes, then targeted specific ads that appear to have been placed by people who own but know little about guns?  He does mention Craigslist, which of course has a NO GUNS POLICY, similar to Ebay, Amazon and other national online for-sale and auction websites.   And the article does mention our only major competitor, Gunbroker, as if they are the Kleenex of internet gun sales, but according to Compete.com, it is GunsAmerica that has the most unique visitors looking for guns these days, even without a NASCAR sponsorship.  Go figure.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBloomberg says that the BATFE is not doing their job, be we know they are, and they do it well.  We are generally in weekly contact with the US Department of Justice. They know we have a &#8220;no subpoena&#8221; policy and they ask us to investigate suspect accounts all the time.  We have also been involved with several cases over the years involving state and local police agencies, mostly to catch scammers who never possessed any guns, and BATF (now E) has always know that we have an open policy with anything they need from us.  Since the Patriot Act, several federal agencies, including BATFE, monitor GunsAmerica every day.  Over 3 million people come and go from here every month (about twice what is shown on Compete, as measured by Google Analytics).  Even though we don&#8217;t agree with all of the laws, we support law enforcement efforts to catch the actual bad guys.  Bad guys make law abiding American gun owners look bad, and we want them in jail as quickly as possible.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nYet despite our almost 15 year record of complete cooperation with law enforcement, no calls or emails from Bloomberg.  <i>I wonder why<\/i>?\n<\/p>\n<p>\nI checked the Compete statistics on the website mentioned in the video and it is listed as having 60,000 unique visitors per month. Even if you double that, it is less than 1\/10th of the traffic on either GunsAmerica or Gunbroker  There are also no facts offered about us, them, or the other one or two online buying and selling and auction websites besides the two of us that have any internet traffic at all.  They only list the claimed traffic numbers in Gunbroker press releases, but there are no anecdotal cases involving them in the video.  We can&#8217;t speak for them of course, but this news report and the formal report of Bloomberg itself, which we have not seen, has clearly been gamed towards a specific goal, and the political motives are to take away our 2nd Amendment freedoms and put our guns in the hands of the politicians.  GunsAmerica was started in 1997. It isn&#8217;t a new name on the scene.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nI strongly urge you to speak to the mayor of your city if he or she is in Bloomberg&#8217;s mayor commission.  There have to be some decent freedom loving Americans in that group.   Ask them to hold Bloomberg accountable and release all of the data, not just what he chooses to cherry pick, so that we can see how law abiding America&#8217;s gun owners truly are.  Bloomberg&#8217;s city has rampant gun violence because the law abiding people are not allowed to own guns, not because America&#8217;s law abiding gun owners are willing to break federal law for a few hundred bucks.   In almost 15 years I have seen that this is not the case. We get emails from sellers nearly every day reporting buyers that request transfers with &#8220;no paperwork&#8221; and those buyers are immediately banned and their IP addresses recorded.  How many of them were Bloomberg&#8217;s team?\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAs we all know, in-state gun sales do not require a background check between private sellers. This is the core of Bloomberg&#8217;s gun show slander. Now he is using it against the internet and against you, individual gun owners, buyers and sellers.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nTo be clear, a tighter internet for gun sales would help GunsAmerica, not hurt us.  We would comply with whatever policies they would institute, and we most likely already do most of what they would require.  By shutting down discussion board sales, local posting boards etc., the government would be funneling private gun sales into GunsAmerica.   It would be a huge financial benefit for us, but at the cost of American 2nd Amendment freedom, <b>WE AREN&#8217;T INTERESTED!<\/b>\n<\/p>\n<p>\nGun freedom in America depends on the ability to buy and sell guns freely between individuals, not just licensed dealers.  The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gun_Control_Act_of_1968\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\" title=\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-GCA\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">Gun Control Act of 1968<\/a> should be abolished, and any further encroachment on our rights to buy and sell guns freely should be squashed. You don&#8217;t need a license to sell a car, a butcher knife, dangerous chemicals, even a switchblade where they are legal.   All of these tools have been used by criminals and murderers to commit crimes and hurt and kill people.  Guns are no different than any other potentially dangerous product if used in a criminal manner. Crimes are already illegal.  Catch the bad guys!  Don&#8217;t try to steal our 2nd Amendment freedom with poor excuses for violence in your city.  It is locked down tighter than any city in America, yet you can&#8217;t control guns because you have disarmed the victims.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nYou should be ashamed of yourself Mayor Bloomberg.    Get your own house in order. Law abiding American gun owners take care of our house just fine without you. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/blog\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding-right: 15px; padding-bottom: 15px;\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.gunsamerica.com\/d\/6544-2\/gunsamerica-compete-stats-dec-15-2011.jpg\" alt=\"\" align=\"left\" width=\"400\"\/><\/a><br \/>\nWe don&#8217;t do a lot of opinion pieces in the GunsAmerica Blog. This is the first one in fact.  New York City&#8217;s mayor Bloomberg announced the <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/investigation-finds-62-private-gun-sellers-perform-background\/story?id=15154436#.TupEqPJup8F\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-article\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">results of a new sting conducted by his office today<\/a>, focusing on internet gun sales.  He is using the same tactics he has employed to go after legal gun sales at gun shows, implying that American gun owners are by nature dishonest and willing to break the law to sell their firearms.   Would you break a federal law for $450, or even ten times that?  Probably not. American gun owners are law abiding citizens and proud of our long history of supporting law enforcement and the laws as they are written, even if we disagree with them. <\/p>\n<p>\n As usual, the facts are skewed all over the place, vague where Bloomberg chooses to be vague, and specific and factual where he has an anecdotal soundbyte or video clip he can play. Thankfully they do not appear to involve GunsAmerica sellers, but this is only the tip of the iceberg and if we don&#8217;t say something nobody will.  Unfortunately Diane Sawyer and the talking heads at ABC News don&#8217;t question the sketchy report as usual, and we have received no questions from them, from law enforcement or from Mayor Bloomberg&#8217;s office to request for comments.   CNN seems to have lost the picture of me from 1999, but you may remember that Chuck Schumer tried to regulate internet gun sales back then.  The article is <a href=\"https:\/\/www-cgi.cnn.com\/US\/9904\/29\/on-line.gun.sales\/\" class=\"clickTracking\" campaign=\"bloomberg-CNN-article\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>, and they even brought me into a little secret CNN studio in Boston to do an interview.  As I explained to Mr. Schumer back then, the gun grabbers just don&#8217;t have their facts straight.  American gun owners by and large are overwhelmingly honest and law abiding. At least Schumer in 1999 wasn&#8217;t deliberately manipulating the facts for political gains.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nI wonder why GunsAmerica is not mentioned? Could it be that Bloomberg targeted unknown, old, dead and dying websites that have no supervision over who comes and goes, then targeted specific ads that appear to have been placed by people who own but know little about guns?  He does mention Craigslist, which of course has a NO GUNS POLICY, similar to Ebay, Amazon and other national online for-sale and auction websites.   And the article does mention our only major competitor, Gunbroker, as if they are the Kleenex of internet gun sales, but according to Compete.com, it is GunsAmerica that has the most unique visitors looking for guns these days, even without a NASCAR sponsorship.  Go figure.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBloomberg says that the BATFE is not doing their job, be we know they are, and they do it well.  We are generally in weekly contact with the US Department of Justice. They know we have a &#8220;no subpoena&#8221; policy and they ask us to investigate suspect accounts all the time.  We have also been involved with several cases over the years involving state and local police agencies, mostly to catch scammers who never possessed any guns, and BATF (now E) has always know that we have an open policy with anything they need from us.  Since the Patriot Act, several federal agencies, including BATFE, monitor GunsAmerica every day.  Over 3 million people come and go from here every month (about twice what is shown on Compete, as measured by Google Analytics).  Even though we don&#8217;t agree with all of the laws, we support law enforcement efforts to catch the actual bad guys.  Bad guys make law abiding American gun owners look bad, and we want them in jail as quickly as possible.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nYet despite our almost 15 year record of complete cooperation with law enforcement, no calls or emails from Bloomberg.  <i>I wonder why<\/i>?<\/p>\n<p>\n<br \/>\n <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/blog\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_specdata_upc":"","_specdata_placement":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,25,16],"tags":[],"featured":[],"hunt365":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-gunsamerica-authors","7":"category-current-events","8":"category-me"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual -\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We don&#039;t do a lot of opinion pieces in the GunsAmerica Blog. This is the first one in fact. New York City&#039;s mayor Bloomberg announced the results of a new sting conducted by his office today, focusing on internet gun sales. He is using the same tactics he has employed to go after legal gun sales at gun shows, implying that American gun owners are by nature dishonest and willing to break the law to sell their firearms.  Would you break a federal law for $450, or even ten times that? Probably not. American gun owners are law abiding citizens and proud of our long history of supporting law enforcement and the laws as they are written, even if we disagree with them.   As usual, the facts are skewed all over the place, vague where Bloomberg chooses to be vague, and specific and factual where he has an anecdotal soundbyte or video clip he can play. Thankfully they do not appear to involve GunsAmerica sellers, but this is only the tip of the iceberg and if we don&#039;t say something nobody will. Unfortunately Diane Sawyer and the talking heads at ABC News don&#039;t question the sketchy report as usual, and we have received no questions from them, from law enforcement or from Mayor Bloomberg&#039;s office to request for comments.  CNN seems to have lost the picture of me from 1999, but you may remember that Chuck Schumer tried to regulate internet gun sales back then. The article is here, and they even brought me into a little secret CNN studio in Boston to do an interview. As I explained to Mr. Schumer back then, the gun grabbers just don&#039;t have their facts straight. American gun owners by and large are overwhelmingly honest and law abiding. At least Schumer in 1999 wasn&#039;t deliberately manipulating the facts for political gains.   I wonder why GunsAmerica is not mentioned? Could it be that Bloomberg targeted unknown, old, dead and dying websites that have no supervision over who comes and goes, then targeted specific ads that appear to have been placed by people who own but know little about guns? He does mention Craigslist, which of course has a NO GUNS POLICY, similar to Ebay, Amazon and other national online for-sale and auction websites.  And the article does mention our only major competitor, Gunbroker, as if they are the Kleenex of internet gun sales, but according to Compete.com, it is GunsAmerica that has the most unique visitors looking for guns these days, even without a NASCAR sponsorship. Go figure.    Bloomberg says that the BATFE is not doing their job, be we know they are, and they do it well. We are generally in weekly contact with the US Department of Justice. They know we have a &quot;no subpoena&quot; policy and they ask us to investigate suspect accounts all the time. We have also been involved with several cases over the years involving state and local police agencies, mostly to catch scammers who never possessed any guns, and BATF (now E) has always know that we have an open policy with anything they need from us. Since the Patriot Act, several federal agencies, including BATFE, monitor GunsAmerica every day. Over 3 million people come and go from here every month (about twice what is shown on Compete, as measured by Google Analytics). Even though we don&#039;t agree with all of the laws, we support law enforcement efforts to catch the actual bad guys. Bad guys make law abiding American gun owners look bad, and we want them in jail as quickly as possible.   Yet despite our almost 15 year record of complete cooperation with law enforcement, no calls or emails from Bloomberg. I wonder why?     Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gun Reviews and News | GunsAmerica.com\/Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gunsamerica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-15T21:44:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-06T16:52:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/GA_MAIN_LOGO_RGB_WEB-01.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1201\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"191\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Helinski\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@gunsamerica\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@gunsamerica\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Helinski\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Paul Helinski\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/5e03b35fc5e9064fc6af6c4e55d678c1\"},\"headline\":\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-12-15T21:44:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-10-06T16:52:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1393,\"commentCount\":67,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Authors\",\"Current Events\",\"Paul Helinski\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/\",\"name\":\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-12-15T21:44:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-10-06T16:52:35+00:00\",\"description\":\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual -\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/gunsamerica.com\\\/digest\\\/\",\"name\":\"Gun Reviews and News | GunsAmerica.com\\\/Digest\",\"description\":\"Gun Reviews, Industry News, and Product Reviews for Rifles, Pistols, Revolvers, Shotguns, Optics, and Ammunition. 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This is the first one in fact. New York City's mayor Bloomberg announced the results of a new sting conducted by his office today, focusing on internet gun sales. He is using the same tactics he has employed to go after legal gun sales at gun shows, implying that American gun owners are by nature dishonest and willing to break the law to sell their firearms.  Would you break a federal law for $450, or even ten times that? Probably not. American gun owners are law abiding citizens and proud of our long history of supporting law enforcement and the laws as they are written, even if we disagree with them.   As usual, the facts are skewed all over the place, vague where Bloomberg chooses to be vague, and specific and factual where he has an anecdotal soundbyte or video clip he can play. Thankfully they do not appear to involve GunsAmerica sellers, but this is only the tip of the iceberg and if we don't say something nobody will. Unfortunately Diane Sawyer and the talking heads at ABC News don't question the sketchy report as usual, and we have received no questions from them, from law enforcement or from Mayor Bloomberg's office to request for comments.  CNN seems to have lost the picture of me from 1999, but you may remember that Chuck Schumer tried to regulate internet gun sales back then. The article is here, and they even brought me into a little secret CNN studio in Boston to do an interview. As I explained to Mr. Schumer back then, the gun grabbers just don't have their facts straight. American gun owners by and large are overwhelmingly honest and law abiding. At least Schumer in 1999 wasn't deliberately manipulating the facts for political gains.   I wonder why GunsAmerica is not mentioned? Could it be that Bloomberg targeted unknown, old, dead and dying websites that have no supervision over who comes and goes, then targeted specific ads that appear to have been placed by people who own but know little about guns? He does mention Craigslist, which of course has a NO GUNS POLICY, similar to Ebay, Amazon and other national online for-sale and auction websites.  And the article does mention our only major competitor, Gunbroker, as if they are the Kleenex of internet gun sales, but according to Compete.com, it is GunsAmerica that has the most unique visitors looking for guns these days, even without a NASCAR sponsorship. Go figure.    Bloomberg says that the BATFE is not doing their job, be we know they are, and they do it well. We are generally in weekly contact with the US Department of Justice. They know we have a \"no subpoena\" policy and they ask us to investigate suspect accounts all the time. We have also been involved with several cases over the years involving state and local police agencies, mostly to catch scammers who never possessed any guns, and BATF (now E) has always know that we have an open policy with anything they need from us. Since the Patriot Act, several federal agencies, including BATFE, monitor GunsAmerica every day. Over 3 million people come and go from here every month (about twice what is shown on Compete, as measured by Google Analytics). Even though we don't agree with all of the laws, we support law enforcement efforts to catch the actual bad guys. Bad guys make law abiding American gun owners look bad, and we want them in jail as quickly as possible.   Yet despite our almost 15 year record of complete cooperation with law enforcement, no calls or emails from Bloomberg. I wonder why?     Read More...","og_url":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/","og_site_name":"Gun Reviews and News | GunsAmerica.com\/Digest","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gunsamerica","article_published_time":"2011-12-15T21:44:24+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-10-06T16:52:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1201,"height":191,"url":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/GA_MAIN_LOGO_RGB_WEB-01.webp","type":"image\/webp"}],"author":"Paul Helinski","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@gunsamerica","twitter_site":"@gunsamerica","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Paul Helinski","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/"},"author":{"name":"Paul Helinski","@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/#\/schema\/person\/5e03b35fc5e9064fc6af6c4e55d678c1"},"headline":"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual","datePublished":"2011-12-15T21:44:24+00:00","dateModified":"2023-10-06T16:52:35+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/"},"wordCount":1393,"commentCount":67,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Authors","Current Events","Paul Helinski"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/","url":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/","name":"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-12-15T21:44:24+00:00","dateModified":"2023-10-06T16:52:35+00:00","description":"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual -","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/bloomberg-internet-gun-sting\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bloomberg Internet Gun Sting a Scam as Usual"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/#website","url":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/","name":"Gun Reviews and News | GunsAmerica.com\/Digest","description":"Gun Reviews, Industry News, and Product Reviews for Rifles, Pistols, Revolvers, Shotguns, Optics, and Ammunition. 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