XM MLB Chat: Mayor Bloomberg charged NY taxpayers and the NYPD for his Arizona caper

2/6/11, "Times are tough all over — so how nice that city taxpayers are contributing to Arizona’s economy.

That’s the upshot of the Bloomberg administration’s bizarre

undercover sting at a Phoenix gun show last month.

Complete with locally hired private investigators and hidden cameras, the project cost $100,000 — out of the NYPD budget — to demonstrate that it’s really, really easy to buy a gun in Arizona.

Who’da thunk it?

The sting also showed that the average person can purchase a high-capacity handgun magazine similar to that used in last month’s Tucson shooting that killed six people and grievously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Again, this is such profound news that

New Yorkers had to foot the bill to discover it?

Not surprisingly, Arizona authorities were ticked off, given that they weren’t even given a courtesy “heads-up” that the operation was going on. State Attorney General Tom Horne rightly called it a “public relations stunt.”

Bloomberg, of course, has never been bashful about putting taxpayers’ money

where his mouth is.

It would have been better had Bloomberg done something substantive —

as opposed to a publicity gimmick.

Instead of dipping into the NYPD budget for out-of-state stunts, why not just direct the department to stop buying Glock handguns until the manufacturer stops selling high-capacity magazines to private citizens?

Glock manufactured the magazine used in the Tucson shooting.

A boycott would be most appropriate."

2/6/11, "Mike's Arizona Stimulus," NY Post Editorial