NY mayor pressures police pension fund to dump gunmaker stocks

By Edward Krudy NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mayor Bill de Blasio has submitted a resolution urging the New York City Police Pension Fund to consider exiting investments in companies that manufacture assault weapons for civilians, the mayor's office said on Thursday. The resolution was submitted on Wednesday, the mayor's office said. It requests the fund's administrators to carry out an analysis on divesting from stocks such as Smith & Wesson Holding Corp and Sturm Ruger & Co. The mayor, a trustee on the police pension fund's 12-member board, pledged after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, in November, to push all five funds in the city's $155 billion public pension system to dump their investments in gun stocks. "We should not be investing in companies that manufacture and market assault weapons to civilians - ever," de Blasio said in a statement. The mayor's office said it expected the New York City Police Pension Fund (PPF) to vote on the resolution in the coming months. It will submit similar resolution to the Uniformed Fire Pensions and the Board of Education Retirement System. Representatives of the three funds could not immediately be reached for comment. Two of the funds, the New York City Employees Retirement System and the New York City Teachers Retirement System, dropped their holdings in gun stocks after the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. Funds for the city's police and fire departments and the city's board of education have not divested. Investments in gun makers across the three funds amounted to $2.1 million, as of Sept. 30, a person with knowledge of the assets told Reuters in December. The person asked not to be named as the funds do not publish detailed asset lists. The three funds had assets of $46 billion as of that date, the person said. (Reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by David Gregorio)