Mayor Bloomberg is one of the most high-profile advocates for gun control in American politics. So why is his personal army selling its spent shell casing to a Georgia ammunition company, which reuses them to spray more bullets into America? The NYPD formerly sold its shell casings to New York scrap metal companies, but the Times has learned that the department recently sold 28,000 pounds of shell casings to Georgia Arms, which resells them in rural Villa Rica, Georgia and online. By the way, the store's 1,000-round boxes are called Canned Heat.
Georgia Arms paid $69,696 for the shell casings, which are collected from an NYPD firing range in the Bronx. According to the Bloomberg administration, that's slightly more than what the city has made off the shell casings in previous years. As it happens, it's illegal to possess ammunition without a license to own a gun in NYC, but any trigger-happy 21-year-old can walk into Georgia Arms and stock up on boxes of Canned Heat. The only requirement down there is that you "be standing in front of the counter and breathing,” explains Jerry Henry, executive director of Georgia Carry, a group that works “to reclaim and expand our right to bear arms.”
Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna tells us, "The City’s auction process of public property dictates the sales must be made to the highest bidder. The sales, including the most recent sale in July, have been awarded in most cases to scrap metal or recycling companies. In a recent auction in June, an ammunition company from Georgia made the highest bid and the city had to comply with the same procedure applied to all auctions and complete the sale to that company."
Still, it seems Bloomberg doesn't have a problem with bullets begetting bullets. John Feinblatt, the mayor’s chief policy adviser, tells the Times that Bloomberg "stood behind the sale and would allow similar sales in the future. We’re about crime control. We’re not about gun control." Bullet control just doesn't seem to be a priority:
