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Lauer Taunting Bloomy - Fancy-Colored Firearms.

This news article courtesy of NY Daily News.

Gun paint company taunts Mayor Bloomberg with paints named after him
BY KIRSTEN DANIS
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Friday, March 21st 2008, 4:00 AM

Bloomberg is the featured moniker of Lauer Custom Weaponry's gun-customization kit. Hizzoner is also an outspoken opponent of Lauer's gun paints - so much so he outlawed them in N.Y.C.

Lauer Custom Weaponry's 'Bloomberg Collection' features gun coatings with a color-by-borough paint set (Manhattan Red, Brooklyn Blue, Bronx Rose, Queens Green and Staten Island Orange).

...and a template to create a graffiti 'facade' for maximum gun pimping.
A Wisconsin company that disguises deadly firearms with bright paints and camouflage has a new target: Mayor Bloomberg.

Lauer Custom Weaponry, whose products were banned in the city in 2006 because they make dangerous guns look like innocent toys, is taunting the anti-gun mayor with a line of paints named "The Bloomberg Collection."

The company - which named its purple hue after Barney, the dinosaur beloved by toddlers - is peddling a rainbow of candy-colored paints for each of the five boroughs.

There's red for Manhattan, rose for the Bronx, blue for Brooklyn, green for Queens and orange for Staten Island.

And as an extra slap - a stencil of the mayor's face for the barrel of the gun.

Gun owners also can plunk down $129 for a "Bloomberg Collection EZ Camo Kit" to pimp out their semiautomatics and rifles with a brick wall and graffiti decoration.

It's no joke.

An outraged Bloomberg called gun-coloration kits "a tragedy in the making."

"Making a quick buck by coloring a handgun to look like a toy is craven and beneath any honest businessman," Bloomberg told the Daily News. "By coloring these guns, a real one looks like a toy, and a police officer won't be able to tell the difference."

"Imagine an officer who comes upon a teenager pointing a pink gun into a crowd. If the gun is a toy, an innocent teenager may be killed - and others, too.

"Our police officers have a hard enough job as it is, and that's why we passed a law to prevent these deadly tragedies from occurring."

It's just the latest time Bloomberg has come under fire from the weapons industry for his efforts to shut down New York's illegal gun trade.

Last year, a Virginia gun shop held a "Bloomberg raffle" - with the prize a brand-new gun - to protest the mayor's crackdown on stores he says are illegally peddling firearms that end up on New York streets.

Not to be left out, the National Rifle Association soon plastered a picture of Bloomberg as an octopus on the cover of its magazine.

This time, Bloomberg angered Steve Lauer, owner of Lauer Custom Weaponry, when he pushed through a law that punishes anyone who uses, buys or sells a gun-coloration kit in New York with a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.

"The mayor picked us out as being the pink-gun guys," said Toby Johnson, who described himself as Lauer's "right-hand man" at the Chippewa Falls company.

The bright paints were meant to help rescue workers and range masters locate guns more easily - not fool cops, Johnson said. They regularly sell the colors named after the boroughs and have even sold "five or six" Bloomberg camo kits, Johnson said.

Women also are big fans of the colors, he added.

"The ladies like it. They fashion their guns after their clothing," Johnson said.

But at least one woman was angered by the "shameful ploy" and "disgraceful marketing."

"In the hands of a child, a real gun made to look like a toy has deadly consequences," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan).

I'm not sure what to think of this but these are toy-colored guns that could endanger the lives of others who think it is only a toy. While I do not like the paranoia which ungulfs NYC's finest, this could also pose a problem to them. They wouldn't know which is real and fake. People get hurt or killed because of some form of alteration in the standards of firearms.

Personally, I think they're a little off-beat. And I kinda like the blue one.

Either way, I believe it's kinda funny because I don't like Bloomy at all. What I'm worried about is that, this situation could signal the BATF to push for another regulation to the overregulated firearms law.

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My only concern

Is that a child would get their hands on a real weapon and think it was a toy because of the color.

I was raised with guns in the house.

I fired my first 22 caliber at the age of 6 and was packing a 30:06 at the age of 12. When I was in high school, I had my rifle in my car during hunting season. My buddies and I would go hunting or target shooting after school. When I was fishing I carried either a 22 or 357 revolver. And, certainly, when I backpacked, a 357 at the least. For ammunition, except for 22 caliber rounds, I assembled all of it.

Ignorance is rampant within our society regarding all fascets of the responsibilities for individual firearms assets. Therein resides the actual danger that we need to understand. Instead of training we the people to be cowards, we the people need to educate ourselves regarding freedom's responsibilities as individuals, and that includes the right to self defense. Also, as per the second amendment, we the people are the militia, to be dutifully armed and trained by the state.

There has always been a criminal element to society and criminals are losers. I guarantee that a well armed society would lessen the event of violent crime, if only as a result of self defense. Actually, the evidence is available for those who wish to avail themselves of the proof.

Totally

agree with you.

"He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it." Confucius