Bloomberg Group's Anti-Gun Politics Drives Mayors To Leave

It's his crusade, not theirs

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns is finding it hard to keep its membership up, thanks to dozens of resignations and lost elections over the last few months.

Worse for Bloomberg, who has become one of the faces of the gun control movement: the people replacing his lost comrades aren't particularly eager to sign up with the organization, a rare group battling in the trenches against the well-organized and deep-pocketed National Rifle Association. Some appear not quite to have signed on for that level of political heat.

"The original focus, I thought, was going to be on focusing on better on enforcement of our existing laws, and if anything, we have talked about not getting involved with things like banning assault weapons and banning magazine clips," said Rockford, Il. Mayor Lawrence Morrissey, who left the group in June because, he said at a town hall meeting, the group had veered from what he originally thought it was about.