SAF (Second Amendment Foundation) CALLS FOR FIRING OF BOSTON GLOBE COLUMNIST IN STRAW PURCHASE

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today sent a letter to Martin Baron, editor of the Boston Globe, asking that Globe columnist Steve Bailey be fired for his acknowledged participation in the straw purchase of a handgun in New Hampshire about two years ago.

Bailey wrote a column about his trip to the gun show in the Globe’s Nov. 30, 2005 edition, but only recently did he disclose important details of the transaction during a live on-air discussion with WRKO radio hosts Tom Finneran and Todd Feinburg. The Globe is owned by the anti-gun New York Times.

During that July 10 radio segment, Bailey explained that he visited the gun show with an unidentified New Hampshire man. He was also with John Rosenthal, head of Stop Handgun Violence in Massachusetts. They wanted to prove how “easy” it would be to purchase a handgun at a gun show.

Here’s what Bailey told his hosts on the air: “We finally settled on a .38 Special. To be fair we took a new Hampshire resident with us who was a guard, a prison guard. It would have been much harder; you would have had a waiting time if you were a Massachusetts resident…

“But he (the New Hampshire man) bought it for me. I gave him a couple of hundred bucks. We expensed it to the Globe by the way. One of the first things I learned when I came to the Globe was I never saw a receipt I couldn’t expense.”

SAF founder Alan Gottlieb was astonished by the statement, noting, “Bailey admitted to committing a federal felony on live radio, and he also involved the Boston Globe in his criminal enterprise by having them reimburse him for the illegal purchase. He claims he gave the gun back to the New Hampshire man, and doesn’t know where it is now. Bailey’s admission is simply outrageous.

“Just because you hate guns, and Bailey made it clear that he thinks ‘we have way too many guns in this country,’ illegally buying a gun just to write about it is still a federal crime,” Gottlieb added. “We’ve called for an investigation of this incident, and based on what’s said in that audio, we think Bailey should be terminated as a Globe employee. We also want Rosenthal’s involvement investigated, because it is clear from the broadcast and statements he made to Gun Week that he was a party to this transaction.”