Kathy Taylor and Mayors Against Illegal Guns

UPDATE 2013/06/08: As I've examined news releases and articles from the initial Mayors Against Illegal Guns summit, the picture is emerging that Kathy Taylor was even farther from being a mere passive attendee in Michael Bloomberg's group than I thought. I've added some links and photos below. Taylor was part of a small core group of 15 mayors -- 13 of them Democrats -- who signed on to a common statement of principles, which included the pledge to recruit other mayors to join. I think it's fair to say that Kathy Taylor was a charter member of Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun-rights coalition.

Taylor's backtracking is reminiscent of her sudden disappearance from the advisory board of Tulsans for Better Government, the group that came into existence to push for at-large seats on the city council.

Kathy Taylor's active involvement as Tulsa mayor in New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's group Mayors Against Illegal Guns was a topic in last night's KRMG/Fox23 Tulsa mayoral forum. During the rebuttal opportunity at the end of the forum, Taylor says she attended one conference with many other mayors and didn't inhale. (I may have made up those last three words.)

The record shows that Kathy Taylor attended the organizational meeting of Mayors Against Illegal Guns at New York City's Gracie Mansion on April 25, 2006 -- she was one of only 15 mayors present. (Here's a link to the Tulsa World's story on Taylor's presence at the National Summit on Illegal Guns, where she said she received "confirmation that we are on the right track." And here's a link to the official webpage for the April 2006 launch of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.)

Tulsa mayor Kathy Taylor at the National Summit on Illegal Guns, with Mayors Frank Melton of Jackson, MS, Philip Amicone of Yonkers, NY, and Douglas Palmer of Trenton, NJ. Image from Mayors Against Illegal Guns website. Hat tip to Matthew Vermillion (@mvermi on Twitter).

Kathy Taylor signed a six-point statement of principles which included a call to keep "lethal, military-style weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines off our streets." Of course, most guns are designed to be lethal (excluding starters' pistols, cap guns, and the like), and Taylor signed on to language epitomizing the left-wing swoon over "assault weapons," where scary appearance matters more than any distinction in performance.

Kathy Taylor was with the group again six months later in Chicago on October 25, 2006, at a midwestern summit of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, appearing at a press conference with Bloomberg and other mayors at Chicago Police headquarters. Then on January 24, 2007, Kathy Taylor was in Washington with other members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns urging the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment, a provision of Federal law that protects the privacy of lawful gun owners.

Mayor Kathy Taylor on Wednesday urged an end to federal restrictions on information that could help local police crack down on crimes committed with illegal guns....

In Washington to attend the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Taylor joined other members of a coalition known as Mayors Against Illegal Guns to bring attention to the illegal gun trade and seek help from the federal government.

The coalition specifically targeted legislation by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., that it believes keeps the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other agencies from sharing trace data that could help local police combat illegal guns.

Seems like she inhaled pretty deeply.

Here are snapshots from the web capturing Kathy Taylor's involvement in the Mayors Against Illegal Guns over time:

Kathy Taylor's name and title as Mayor of Tulsa appear on this Mayors Against Illegal Guns ad calling for the repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, dated June 1, 2007.

Kathy Taylor's name and title as Mayor of Tulsa appear on this Mayors Against Illegal Guns letter to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid dated July 1, 2009. The letter is titled "Re: 400 Mayors Call on Congress to Support H.R.2324/S.843 and Close the Gun Show Loophole"

News9 report identifies Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor as a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns in a January 2, 2009, story about the group's report, "The Movement of Illegal Guns in America: The Link between Gun Laws and Interstate Trafficking."

This capture of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Wikipedia page from September 23, 2009, says that Oklahoma is unrepresented, that Taylor is leaving the mayor's office, and it notes that as of September 2009, her name is no longer on the coalition's roster. Taylor is not listed among mayors who resigned because they were misled about the purposes of the coalition.

Taylor's name, title, and photo appear on the MAIG website as late as November 17, 2007. It was not on the December 18, 2007, capture of the file. Kathy Taylor's name and city appear on the MAIG map as late as July 23, 2009.

This NRA-ILA fact sheet says that Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor was a member of Mayor's Against Illegal Guns as of August 20, 2009. Another NRA-ILA fact sheet explains what MAIG is all about.

This NRA-ILA report says that as of November 17, 2009, Taylor had resigned from MAIG. That was also about the time of the election to replace her, so it's not clear if the resignation was a parting of the ways with the organization or just the result of her leaving office.

RELATED: Bartlett Jr said that he had the unqualified endorsement of the NRA. In his 2009 mayoral race, Bartlett Jr received a "?" rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund for his failure to complete the questionnaire. (Rivals Chris Medlock and Tom Adelson both received "A"s.) On his LinkedIn profile Daniel Patten, Bartlett Jr's campaign manager, says that he served as a campaign field representative for the NRA-ILA from April 2012 to November 2012. Whether a budding young campaign manager might call in a favor from friends at his old job in an attempt to rescue his first candidate campaign from an early demise... I leave that as an exercise for the reader.