We shouldn’t underestimate those do-gooder mayors (our fair Baltimore’s ex Mayor O’Malley was amongst them) who are fighting so hard against the scourge of illegal guns (mostly by making sure all the legal ones go away too). They’re certainly a powerful political force for the hoplophobes like Ceasefire Maryland and the Brady Bunch. Who wouldn’t want to have a bunch of mayors on your side if your ultimate goal was a rollback of CCW rights and onerous registration schemes for legitimate gun owners?

Well, the forces of gun grabberdom lost another one. Sayeth the Mayor of Anchorage, AK (not exactly where you’d expect to find politicians friendly to the guns-r-evil mantra, eh?):

This is in response to some recent questions about my involvement in the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition. I recently withdrew my name from the coalition after initially agreeing to sign on.

I do support the efforts to strengthen laws and prosecute individuals who dispense or use illegal guns, and getting them out of the hands of criminals. However, upon further review of the coalition, it appears they may have a different agenda than I anticipated.

I am concerned the coalition is working on issues that conflict with the beliefs we share in Alaska about legal gun ownership, and I’m also concerned gun ownership advocates are not part of the full discussion within the coalition. We cannot afford to risk protecting our Bill of Rights and the rights of legal gun owners.

Because of these conflicts, I have written to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, chair of the coalition, and have asked him to remove me as a supporter of the coalition.

We do have a problem in Anchorage with youth violence, gangs and their use of illegal guns. We are working with our gang task force, the Police Department and other means to eliminate the violence.

We’ll continue to fight that problem without infringing on the rights of legal gun owners.

—- Mayor Mark Begich

Thank goodness.