Bloomberg Vows Stiffer Fight to Overhaul U.S. Gun Laws

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM, NYT

It is a moment when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s heart races and his breath gets caught in his throat: the ringing of a bedside telephone in the middle of the night.

The message is inevitably the same: A police officer has been shot on the streets of New York.

“I just gag,” Mr. Bloomberg said, recalling his feeling of dread. “Chances are I’m out of bed, into the bathroom, get some clothes on and off to a hospital.”

He races to get there, determined to arrive ahead of the family, he said, “so I can tell them that their son or daughter is not coming home.”

Ask Mr. Bloomberg about firearms, and his usual stoic facade falls away, revealing anger and exasperation born of years of witnessing the blood and tears that can flow from gun violence.

Now, furious at the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Conn., and frustrated by inaction in Congress, Mr. Bloomberg said in an interview this week that he would ratchet up his fight to overhaul gun laws, drawing on his considerable political and finance resources to bring about change.

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