(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

The big political takeaway from last week’s shooting at Virginia Tech is that the current crop of Democratic candidates have all become soft on gun control, according to City Councilman David Yassky. He’s an expert on gun control, having helped author and pass the Brady Bill and assault-weapons ban during his days as a congressional aide to Chuck Schumer. “It’s disappointing,” Yassky says, that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and other Democrats appear “skittish” and “demoralized” on gun control. In 2000, Yassky points out, both Al Gore and Bill Bradley ran on a platform that called for mandatory federal licensing for gun owners. Now nobody is. Except maybe Dennis Kucinich. And maybe a self-financed, get-results gun-control crusader running as an independent? “These candidates are going to leave a big opening for Mayor Bloomberg on the gun issue,” Yassky says. But despite Bloomberg’s lobbying group’s announcing a national anti-gun advertising rollout April 22, the official line is still the same: Bloomberg isn’t running.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
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• Table of Contents: April 30, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!