Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been leading a valiant coalition: Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Their goal is simple, to make their communities safer by putting illegal gun traffickers out of business.

Since the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby insist that they are law-abiding, it would seem that they would support the efforts by Bloomberg’s bipartisan coalition that includes cities, suburbs, and small towns across America. But, of course, the NRA is less than sincere about cracking down on illegal gun sales.

That is why it pushed through a 2005 bill in Congress that exempted the gun industry from liability lawsuits in most cases.

As a result, Bloomberg’s efforts to sue gun manufacturers for allegedly tolerating -- if not enabling --illegal gun distribution and sales was recently dismissed. According to a May 1st New York Times article, “A federal appeals court threw out New York City’s longstanding lawsuit against the gun industry on Wednesday, ruling that a relatively new federal law protects gun makers against such suits.”

Wouldn’t you think that the gun industry would want to cleanse itself of rogue gun dealers and sellers? Apparently not. Selling guns is profitable – and the gun industry depends upon the "criminal market” to bolster its bottom line.

The gun industry knows full well it has a problem with illegal gun dealers who enable the trafficking of arms, but the industry refuses to do anything about it. According to ATF's own government report:

1.2 percent of current dealers (1,020 dealers) account for 57 percent of crime gun traces to active dealers. Each of these dealers had 10 or more crime guns traced to them. Just 0.2% of dealers (132 dealers) had 50 or more crime guns traced to them, accounting for 27% of crime gun traces.

Even though most of the problem of gun trafficking is driven by a few bad apple gun dealers, the gun industry's line, and promulgated by the gun lobby, is that they "see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing." Almost sounds like the mob doesn't it?

The New York Times article tells us:

The city’s suit, filed in 2000, was upheld in December 2005 by Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Judge Weinstein allowed it to move forward, despite protests by gun makers like Beretta U.S.A., Browning Arms, Colt Manufacturing, Glock and Smith & Wesson, all of which cited a federal law that had been passed two months earlier.

That law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, banned all suits against the gun industry except those in which a plaintiff could prove that gun makers had violated state or federal statutes in their sales and marketing practices.

The city contended that the gun makers did exactly that, by failing to monitor retail dealers closely enough and, therefore, by allowing guns to end up in the hands of criminals. As a result, the city said, the manufacturers had created a “condition that negatively affects the public health or safety” and, thus, had violated New York State’s public-nuisance law. It requested an injunction.

But the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument, ruling that the nuisance law did not constitute a permissible exception under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. It reversed Judge Weinstein’s decision and ordered the suit dismissed.

So, once again, a craven Congress has prevented a local governmental body from stopping the illegal flow of guns into its community.

According to the Times, in a statement released on Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg expressed disappointment in the decision but said it would have no effect on the suits still pending against the dealers, which claimed a clear violation of gun-sale laws. “Regardless of this ruling, we will continue our fight against illegal guns full-bore — in the courtrooms, on the streets, and in Congress,” he said.

You need a strong backbone and a long-term commitment to keep battling the bullying gun lobby. We are grateful that Bloomberg isn’t backing down.