This Thursday, January 21, is a “gun bill” day in the House Judiciary Committee, at the state capitol in Olympia at 1:30 P.M. in House Hearing Room A of the John L. O’Brien Building.

Bills gun owners must oppose include:

• A ban on carrying guns for purposes self-defense on public property or parks HB 2460
• Confiscation of firearms without due process HB 2461
• Destruction of confiscated firearms without reason HB 2372
• Jail time for not locking up all firearms HB 1747

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Protect Our Gun Rights, and the Gun Owners Action League recommends you OPPOSING HB 1747, 2461, 2372 and 2460.

SUPPORT HB 2481, the bill that fixes the current law on Short Barreled Rifles.

This is a hearing you NEED to attend!

You must sign in on the forms outside the hearing room to testify for or against bills. You may also sign in for or against without testifying.

If you cannot appear at the hearing, please click on each bill number linked below and click on the COMMENT ON THIS BILL feature to voice your opposition or support for the following:

***THIS IS NOT AN OPEN CARRY EVENT***

PLEASE DRESS NO LESS THAN BUSINESS CASUAL

As the Florida House of Representatives prepares to vote on Open Carry bill HB 163 and Campus Carry bill HB 68 on Tuesday, February 2nd it is now more critical than ever that supporters of the right to keep and bear arms contact elected representatives in Florida!
Under current Florida law, mere accidental exposure of a lawfully carried sidearm – while reaching for a product on a tall shelf or when wind blows a cover garment aside – is grounds for arrest.
House Bill 163 would allow license holders to carry open or concealed in the state without needless risk of criminal liability or harassment. This is particularly critical in light of recent calls by the Committee to Stop Gun Violence and other anti-rights groups to call police “If you see someone carrying a firearm in public — openly or concealed — and have ANY doubts about their intent” – an invitation to a potentially SWAT-like response.
Also under current Florida law, even gun owners with concealed carry licenses, training and background checks can be arrested if found in possession of a firearm on a university or college campus, even on unmarked properties.
House Bill 68 would recognize that a license holder doesn’t somehow magically lose the ability to behave responsibly by setting foot on such properties and deletes that provision.
Each bill faces hostile amendments on the House Floor on Tuesday in attempts to gun or destroy them.
Our affiliate, Florida Carry, is leading the charge to push these vital steps towards common sense gun laws forward in the face of bitter resistance. They need YOUR help!
Florida Carry does not need your money to win this battle, they need your Pro Liberty Grassroots involvement. Take one minute, call a Florida Representative & let them know that you support HB 163 and HB68 – without hostile amendments!
You can use the following link to get a list of the members of the Florida House of Representatives.
Thank you for your help at this critical time.

BELLEVUE, WA – Two months after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, while President Barack Obama launched a new gun control push, reports from across the country about surging gun sales and carry permit applications is proof that the public is increasingly relying on the Second Amendment to keep them safe, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

For example, noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, today South Dakota Secretary of State Shantel Krebs reported that residents of her state are applying for concealed carry permits “at a record pace,” according to KSFY News. The Daily Mail reported last month that applications for carry permits “have skyrocketed in California in the wake of the San Bernardino shootings.” And in Washington State, the Department of Licensing reported today that January saw the number of active concealed pistol licenses rise by more than 8,000.

“The Boston Globe reported last week that tens of thousands of new gun licenses were issued in Massachusetts last year,” Gottlieb said. “In New Jersey, with tough gun laws, applications for gun purchases last year nearly tripled over what they were in 2005. One Missouri county reported a three-month back-up in processing permit applications. A county sheriff in North Carolina is so overwhelmed, he’s asking that citizens make appointments.

“Add to this the fact that scores of sheriffs and police chiefs have encouraged citizens to arm themselves,” he added. “Suddenly, gun ownership sounds like a very good idea to people concerned about personal safety.

“What this suggests to us,” Gottlieb observed, “is that all of the rhetoric about new gun restrictions, and the realization that terrorists can strike in this country, hit a nerve with many Americans. Lots of people are buying guns for the first time. Thousands more want to carry firearms for personal protection. Opinion polls about gun control may say one thing, but actions speak louder than words, and the message people are sending is that they really do believe in their right to keep and bear arms.”

Gottlieb said this new surge in gun buying and concealed carry should send a message to the gun prohibition lobby.

“Many Americans are learning for the first time that firearms ownership is a good thing, and they’re not about to give that up for feel-good gun control measures that have historically accomplished nothing,” he concluded.

BELLEVUE, WA – Following the bloodiest January in Chicago in 16 years, a double homicide Jan. 26 in Seattle’s “Jungle” homeless camp and Wednesday’s shooting on a Metro bus, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is challenging both anti-gun cities to explain how their gun violence taxes have accomplished anything to reduce firearms-related violent crime.

At the same time, CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb also wants the backers of Initiative 594, passed 15 months ago in Washington state as a so-called “universal background check” gun control measure, to explain why their new law has failed to prevent teens and public transit gunmen from committing heinous acts. There have been no arrests or prosecutions under 594 despite claims that it has prevented more than 100 illegal purchases, he noted.

“Chicago’s body count for January was 51 dead and a lot more wounded,” Gottlieb observed. “Seattle is off to a rousing start as well with the double-murder at ‘The Jungle’ under I-5 and yesterday’s bus shooting. And let’s not overlook the other double homicide last month in which the victims were beaten to death, a crime that proves restrictive gun laws don’t stop murders because killers will find other ways to commit mayhem.”

Noting that the teenage suspects in the fatal Seattle shooting couldn’t legally carry or possess handguns, Gottlieb said this incident offers yet more evidence that I-594 was just “one more false promise of gun control.” There was no background check conducted in the acquisition of the guns allegedly carried by the teen suspects, and he noted that a police drug raid Tuesday in Burien turned up a stolen gun, which also wound up in the wrong hands, and “definitely no background check was conducted there,” he added.

Both the gun control initiative and the Seattle gun tax are being challenged in court, and a lawsuit has also been brought against the gun tax in Cook County, Illinois, which encompasses Chicago.

“Anti-gunners in Seattle and Chicago need to acknowledge that their gun control efforts aren’t part of the solution to violence, they’re part of the problem,” Gottlieb said. “They are pushed with lots of promise, but they’re quickly revealed to be all flash and no substance. They penalize honest citizens and don’t impress criminals. They lie, and people still die.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Proponents of a new gun control measure announced Thursday in Seattle are “being disingenuous at best” in their zeal to push so-called “extreme risk protection order” legislation which they admit did not pass muster in the Washington State Legislature, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“According to the Seattle Times, this initiative will be based on language found in House Bill 1857,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But anti-gunners couldn’t even get this bill out of a Democrat-controlled legislative committee, because it totally violates due process.

“Their only hope of forcing this on the citizens of Washington State is to buy the ballot measure by spending millions of dollars to dupe low information voters,” he added.

The initiative campaign was announced by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. That’s the same group that pushed Initiative 594 in 2014 by spending more than $10 million on a campaign that, if one were to believe their rhetoric at the time, should not have cost even a fraction of that sum.

“They claimed that I-594, which pushed so-called ‘universal background checks,’ was supported by more than 80 percent of the public,” Gottlieb recalled. “Yet, after spending a small fortune on the campaign, they didn’t even get 60 percent of the popular vote.

“They’re claiming that I-594 was a success because it allegedly blocked more than 100 transactions of allegedly prohibited people,” he said. “But where are the arrests, prosecutions and convictions for the people who committed a felony by lying while trying to get a gun? Where is the evidence that the people who were blocked didn’t get guns by some illicit means? To suggest that their measure helped prevent crimes is an insult to common sense.

“Now the same billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group wants to foist another gun control package onto Washington voters,” Gottlieb stated. “Nobody wants guns to fall into the wrong hands, but the devil is always in the details of these schemes. It tells us a lot that Democrats in the House couldn’t even pass this idea. If this didn’t pass the smell test in Olympia, it shouldn’t get the signatures to put it on the ballot.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Today’s sentencing of anti-gun former California State Senator Leland Yee to five years in federal prison on racketeering conspiracy charges that included a scheme to traffic in firearms shows that “world-class hypocrites are not above the law,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said that because the ex-lawmaker had pleaded guilty last year, “Yee is easily the biggest hypocrite on gun control to have ever walked the halls of the capitol in Sacramento, if not the entire United States.”

Yee was once honored by the Brady Campaign for his gun control activities in the California legislature. In 2006, when Yee was serving in the California Assembly as Speaker Pro Tem, he was reportedly named to the Brady Campaign’s “Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll” for co-sponsoring so-called micro-stamping legislation.

“Maybe the Brady Campaign should do universal background checks on people it decides to honor,” Gottlieb said. “Remember, the Brady bunch, and Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown group thinks gun owners should all be treated like criminals. Well, here’s a guy who pushed the gun control agenda, and he is a criminal.”

The case reminds Gottlieb about a string of embarrassing criminal cases brought against various members of Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns.”

At today’s sentencing, the Los Angeles Times noted, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said there was no reason to be lenient. The judge called Yee’s crimes “essentially an attack on democratic institutions.” And the Associated Press reported that Judge Breyer “called the weapons allegations against Yee…unfathomable and said it was frightening that Yee would be willing to go entirely against his public position on guns in exchange for money.”

“This really is worse than that,” Gottlieb observed. “Leland Yee worked hard enough to make California gun owners miserable that he was honored by a gun control organization. Yet now he stands convicted and sentenced to prison for engaging in the kind of criminal activity that is condemned by honest gun owners.

“Maybe the people should start asking who are the real good guys and who are the real bad guys,” he concluded.

BELLEVUE, WA – Hillary Rodham Clinton needs a remedial course on U.S. history because she can’t tell the difference between the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Clinton, in an interview with television personality Steve Harvey that aired Wednesday, erroneously declared “there’s a constitutional right for people to own guns, but there’s also a constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But that’s not really true, noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb.

“Clinton had it right on the Second Amendment,” he observed, “but she’s embarrassingly wrong about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those unalienable rights are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, but they are not enshrined or enumerated in the Constitution.’

Gottlieb said this gaffe “was painful, considering that Hillary Clinton is a former attorney, former First Lady, former U.S. Senator and former Secretary of State.’

“You would think that with such a resume, Clinton would have learned to get her documents straight,” he suggested. “You might also expect that some sharp reporter might have questioned her about this, but so far she’s essentially gotten a pass. If some Republican had said the same thing, he or she would have been verbally pilloried by now. Consider this one more example of media bias by a fawning press.”

Clinton, Gottlieb said, has been on the warpath against gun rights for months. Her remarks on Harvey’s program simply underscore that fact, as she has tried once again to diminish the importance of the right to keep and bear arms.

“Instead of sending her back to the White House,” Gottlieb suggested, “America should send Hillary Clinton back to the school house. “

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today is urging Idaho gun owners to contact their state legislators in support of Senate bill 1389, which amends existing law to revise provisions regarding concealed weapons, and prohibited conduct.

If passed, this legislation will allow the concealed carry of a handgun without a permit by Idaho residents over the age of 21 who are not disqualified from being issued such a license. The bill was introduced by State Sen. Curt McKenzie (R-District 13).

“Idaho can join a handful of other states that have taken similar actions by eliminating the need for a piece of paper to exercise the constitutional right to bear arms,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We have seen no evidence that permitless carry by honest citizens has been a concern to public safety, anywhere it has become law.

“We know that the gun prohibition lobby tried to prevent West Virginia from adopting what is generically called ‘Constitutional Carry,’ but last week their Legislature overrode the governor’s veto,” he added. “Their sky-is-falling rhetoric should never trump the constitution or the right of self-defense.”

A hearing on the proposal is scheduled next Monday morning in the Lincoln Auditorium at the Capitol in Boise before the Senate State Affairs Committee.

Contact the legislature at: legislature.idaho.gov

BELLEVUE, WA – Thursday’s highly-publicized slaying of a wanted murder suspect in Vicksburg, Mississippi by people he was holding hostage underscores the necessity of having a firearm for self-defense and family protection, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Rafael Arnez McCloud had tied up a husband and wife after forcing his way into their home at knifepoint, according to published reports. The couple has a 5-year-old son, who was not harmed. At one point during the ordeal, the husband broke free, was stabbed in the upper back and tied up again. But the couple was able to access a handgun in the home, and McCloud was fatally shot.

“McCloud was the subject of an intensive week-long manhunt since his escape from custody,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He had been in jail since January and was facing charges of kidnapping, rape and murder in the death of a woman named Sharen Wilson. The entire community knew police were after this guy, and why.

“What happened Thursday was proof that armed self-defense works,” he continued. “This time, McCloud made a fatal error in the victim-selection process, and now there is one less violent criminal on the streets.

“Compare this case to the horrific story of Carol Bowne in New Jersey last year,” he recalled. “She was stabbed to death in her own driveway by a man against whom she had a protection order. When she was killed, Bowne had been waiting for weeks to get a permit from the Berlin Township police chief in order to buy a gun.

“The Vicksburg case illustrates the importance of having the will, and the tool, to fight back,” noted Gottlieb, who co-authored a book titled America Fights Back, Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age. “The importance of the right to keep and bear arms is never more decisively demonstrated than in a self-defense case like this. They used a handgun to defend themselves and their child from a dangerous predator.

“This story puts the lie to arguments by anti-gunners that guns should not be kept in homes with young children,” he stated. “The presence of a handgun in that Vicksburg home kept this family alive. A tragedy was averted because a family had a gun and used it.”

BELLEVUE, WA — A fatal confrontation Sunday morning at a convenience store south of Seattle involving a legally armed citizen who stopped an attack by a man armed with a hatchet underscores the value and necessity of concealed carry, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“A store clerk is alive today because an armed citizen intervened immediately,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb stated. “While we don’t yet know all the details, what we do know is that a vicious attack was stopped by a man who was in the right place at the right time.”

Noting that the Evergreen State has continued to set new records in the number of concealed pistol licenses, Gottlieb said this is reflective of a national trend. Across the country, more and more people are buying firearms and obtaining carry permits and licenses.

“We checked with the Department of Licensing earlier this month and found that more than 525,000 Washington citizens are licensed to carry,” he said. “Police and sheriff’s deputies can’t be everywhere all the time, and the public is becoming more cognizant of that. People are taking responsibility for their own safety, and that certainly applies to what happened Sunday morning in Burien.”

Gottlieb co-authored America Fights Back: Armed Self-defense in a Violent Age. He has been watching the interest in self-defense rising especially since the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino late last year.

“What Sunday’s incident shows is that it isn’t just terrorists people have to worry about, but attacks like this,” he said. “We may never know why the man who was killed launched his brutal attack, but we do know that he was literally stopped in his tracks by a good guy with a gun.

“It’s interesting that the gun prohibition lobby always loses its collective voice after an armed citizen stops a violent crime,” Gottlieb observed. “They talk about restrictive gun laws being okay if it saves just one life. That’s a theory. Well, Sunday morning a citizen had a gun and saved maybe two lives, and that’s a fact.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today launched the first phase of its “Petition to Reject” the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama.

The “Petition to Reject” campaign kicked off with Internet ads urging people to sign an online petition and will be followed with direct mail, radio and TV as well as telephone outreach.

“Judge Merrick Garland has a long record of being anti-gun that threatens Justice Antonin Scalia’s most important decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, a case that affirmed the Second Amendment and a person’s individual right to keep and bear arms,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Obama is trying to change the makeup of the Supreme Court in an effort to undermine the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights.”

Even the Associated Press has acknowledged that confirming Garland to fill the seat left vacant by the death of conservative cornerstone Justice Scalia would shift the court to the left, Gottlieb noted.

“Both the landmark Supreme Court victories in Heller and McDonald were won on 5-4 decisions,” Gottlieb recalled. “Replacing Justice Scalia with a gun prohibitionist is a death blow to our gun rights.

“A few days ago,” he continued, “the New York Times editorialized that Garland fits the description of an ‘ideal moderate’ to fill Scalia’s seat. Gun owners don’t want an ‘ideal moderate’ to replace Scalia, they want a pro-Second Amendment jurist to fill that seat, to retain the current balance on the high court.

CCRKBA’s effort hopes to raise funds to help print and distribute millions of additional petitions, plus fund radio, television, newspaper and Internet impact activities.

“Just as Second Amendment advocates have feared,” Gottlieb observed, “President Obama is trying to change the court’s makeup to destroy the individual right to keep and bear arms. This administration has done everything it can to erode the Second Amendment, and turn this important right into a government-regulated privilege. We can’t allow that to happen.”

BELLEVUE, WA — The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today congratulates Idaho Gov. Butch Otter for putting his signature on SB 1389, allowing law-abiding Gem State residents age 21 or older to carry concealed firearms without a permit.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb called it a “significant step forward for the right to keep and bear arms.”

“Gov. Otter not only did the right thing for the gun owners in his state,” Gottlieb said, “he also sent a message that the gun prohibition lobby led by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety can’t bully the Legislature or buy enough advertising to bamboozle Idaho citizens. They may have gotten away with that strategy in neighboring states, but not Idaho.”

Under the new law, which takes effect July 1, permitless carry wil be allowed for Idahoans age 21 and older, and it will also be possible for honest citizens age 18 and older to qualify for a concealed weapons license. The Senate passed the measure 27-8 and the House passed it 54-15.

“It is always good to remind the gun control crowd that there are still parts of the country where their agenda gets no traction,” Gottlieb said. “The rights of law-abiding citizens are not up for sale, despite what gun prohibitionists might think. Friday was a landmark day in Idaho and Gov. Otter and the Legislature deserve applause.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today called on the Democratic National Committee to show its commitment to gun control by giving up armed security at the national convention in Philadelphia July 25-28.

CCRKBA launched a national petition drive aimed at pressuring Democrats to gather at the Wells Fargo Center without the protection of armed police, Secret Service or private security personnel. The building is already a so-called “gun-free zone.”

“Democrats have become known as the party of gun control,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Virtually all recent gun control proposals at the federal and state levels have been launched and championed by Democrats. It’s time for the party to ‘put up or shut up’ about guns. The best way to do that is to forsake armed security during the convention.”

He noted the “overwhelming hypocrisy” of privileged liberal elitists who have traditionally opposed expanded concealed carry rights for average citizens while they continue to enjoy the protection of armed security. Front runner Hillary Clinton has stated that the Supreme Court was “wrong” in its 2008 Heller ruling about the Second Amendment. She has pushed gun control for average citizens, yet she enjoys Secret Service protection.

“If a political party believes that guns do not make us safer,” Gottlieb observed, “they should set an example by rejecting any and all forms of armed security at their national convention. A party that does not believe in the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms should not benefit from the safety provided by others who bear arms.

“No group, organization or political party that makes erosion of a constitutionally delineated fundamental civil right part of its agenda should benefit in any way from the existence of that right,” Gottlieb stated.

BELLEVUE, WA – Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton has been caught in a cleverly crafted fib about Vermont being a major source of illegal guns in New York, which should give voters in both states pause, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“Today’s Washington Post Fact Checker just handed Hillary a brutal ‘Three Pinocchios’ for what it says is ‘a significantly misleading impression’ Clinton created about Vermont being a major source of crime guns in the Empire State,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb.

The Fact Checker referred to Clinton’s assertion that Vermont is the source of the “highest per capita number of” crime guns in New York. But the Fact Checker noted, “The number of crime guns in New York from Vermont is so small that it could even be attributed to one or two bad actors. Using the per capita measure of trafficked guns originating from Vermont is as pointless as counting guns trafficked per 100,000 head of cattle.”

The Fact Checker, which twice challenged Barack Obama’s claim that 40 percent of gun sales are done without background checks, said “Clinton has carefully crafted her talking point to find the particular government data that support her point, which gives a wildly different view than how trafficking flows are tracked. We do not find the per capita measure as a fair assessment of gun flows from Vermont into New York. The difference between this point using per capita calculation and the raw number (1 percent of crime guns with source states identified in 2014 came from Vermont) is so stark that it creates a significantly misleading impression to the public.”

“From her tale of landing under fire from snipers to her email controversy, Hillary Clinton has created an aura of dishonesty,” Gottlieb observed. “She crafted this meme to discredit rival Bernie Sanders, who represents Vermont in the Senate. It is dishonest and it reminds people why a Washington Post/ABC News poll last month said 57 percent of the people don’t think she is honest or trustworthy.

“New Yorkers should think about this as their primary looms next week,” he said. “This is the kind of political sleight of hand that one expects from a person who could not say for sure if she’s ever lied to the American people.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Responding to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s assertion yesterday during a “gun violence forum” in Philadelphia that there are “too many guns” in America, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is telling the former Secretary of State that “Our guns are none of your business.”

Quoted by WCBM, Clinton told her audience Wednesday, “When it comes to guns, we have just too many guns. On the streets, in our homes, in our neighborhoods. And, you know, there’s been a lot of talk in this campaign, in the primary campaign, about the power of certain interests in our country. And we do have a bunch of powerful interests, make no mistake about it. But there is no more powerful lobby than the gun lobby.”

Attacking gun owners and the firearms industry has become a cornerstone of Clinton’s campaign to win the Democratic nomination.

“Who put Hillary Clinton in charge of deciding how many firearms are too many,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb questioned. “There’s no doubt she would like to be in charge of dictating how many guns someone can own, but the Constitution just might get in her way, not to mention tens of millions of American voters who don’t care for the demagoguery she represents. But, like the man she wants to succeed in the White House, it doesn’t appear that the Constitution or the Second Amendment rights of American citizens mean much to her.

“Clinton has made gun owners the collective bogeyman of her campaign rhetoric,” he continued. “For months she has been dragging the Second Amendment through the mud along her campaign trail. She has demonized the firearms industry, encouraged social bigotry against millions of honest American citizens and even said that she thinks the Supreme Court was wrong about the individual right to keep and bear arms.

“Hillary Clinton and her elitist friends have no business dictating to American citizens how many or what kinds of guns they can own, or how much red tape they have to wade through in order to exercise a constitutionally-protected civil right,” Gottlieb stated. “The irony is that every time she opens her mouth about guns, people open their wallets and buy more guns. She thinks there are too many guns, but the American public obviously thinks there are too many anti-gun politicians.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today is calling on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign and “admit his incompetence” after Wednesday’s report that there have been 1,000 shootings in Chicago so far this year.

“Rahm Emanuel’s administration has been a disaster for public safety,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “His incompetence and anti-gun ideology as a public official are responsible for his inability to deal with this situation. So far this year, there have been more than 170 homicides, and the mayor has been all talk and no results.

“His gun control and crime reduction policies have hurt the most vulnerable citizens in Chicago,” he continued. “Under Emanuel’s leadership, the city has never really complied with the spirit of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago. His restrictive policies have prevented gun stores, where people could obtain the tools to defend themselves and their families. His administration has resisted shooting ranges where citizens could get training and practice. Six years after McDonald, there are still no gun stores or ranges inside the city limits. There is no encouragement to fight back against the violent thugs and drug gangs who prey on the public and have turned the city into a slaughterhouse.

“While the mayor has allowed his city to descend toward anarchy,” Gottlieb added, “his administration has worked aggressively to keep the public disarmed and vulnerable, making them all victims of Emanuel’s failed policies.

“When an elected official consistently fails to lead, when his policies result in more suffering for the citizens he is supposed to represent, and when his strategies have proven to be one huge demonstrable failure, then it is time for him to step down,” he insisted.

“The Chicago Tribune today is calling the shooting total ‘a grim milestone,’ and that certainly describes the overall situation,” Gottlieb observed. “Rahm Emanuel has been a failure at making his city safer. Instead, the carnage has taken Chicago backwards, and the outlook is grim so long as Emanuel stays in office, pushing an agenda that has surrendered the streets and neighborhoods to a criminal element that seems to thrive on violence.

“It is time for Rahm Emanuel to go,” he concluded.

BELLEVUE, WA – Friday’s announcement by President Barack Obama that he will keep pushing for so-called “smart gun” technology during his final year in office is proof that he wants gun control to be a cornerstone of his legacy, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

“The president is stubbornly clinging to the notion that he can convince American citizens to trust their safety to a so-far unreliable technology and push the country toward some sort of Utopia,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “His last-ditch effort to force industry and the public to accept his delusion that adding features to firearms that may make them less reliable in an emergency is nothing short of a compulsion.

“Friday’s report from the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Defense clearly notes that efforts so far have fallen short,” he continued. “The country is still suffering from a lethargic economy, we’re facing a serious terrorist threat at home and abroad, our military needs attention, and Obama is preoccupied with this gun control fetish.”

The president continues to refer to these efforts as “common sense steps” to prevent accidents, Gottlieb noted, but instead of placing so much emphasis on questionable research, the same safety goals could be met through public education, including safety courses as part of the public school curriculum.

“We have never opposed research and development of safer firearms,” Gottlieb said, “but any design features that require RFID chips or other electronic technology that might fail in an emergency isn’t going to save lives, it will only put good people at risk. That amounts to accomplishing less than nothing.

“This is just a bunch of anti-gun hot air that will do nothing to reduce violence and help fund and organize attacks on the Second Amendment,” he concluded.

BELLEVUE, WA – When billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the graduating class at the University of Michigan over the weekend that the so-called “safe space” on a college campus is a “terrible idea,” he should practice more of what he preaches, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“It’s hard to be a Second Amendment advocate and agree with Bloomberg on anything,” quipped CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “but he’s right about the ‘safe space’ being the wrong approach. I just wish he would apply the same reasoning to his own philosophy about firearms.

“Even when he was serving as New York mayor,” he continued, “Bloomberg championed efforts to turn cities into ‘gun-free safe zones,’ which amounts to the same foolishness as a ‘safe space’ on a campus. Just as Bloomberg told Michigan’s graduating seniors that the campus ‘safe space creates the false impression that we can insulate ourselves from those who hold different views,’ a ‘gun-free safe zone’ creates the false impression that being in such a place insulates people from violent criminals or terrorists.

“The notion that creating a ‘gun-free safe zone’ will stop tragedies is a dangerous illusion,” Gottlieb said. “Disarming honest citizens and leaving them vulnerable to unspeakable violence is not simply dishonest, it is delusional.”

Bloomberg also told the graduating class that “Every generation has had to confront its own demagogues.” Gottlieb said that is exactly why Second Amendment activists stand up to the anti-gun billionaire.

“Michael Bloomberg has used his wealth to force his world view down the throats of law-abiding gun owners,” he stated. “Demagogues think they can bully people out of their rights. Wealthy elitist demagogues think they can buy those rights through initiative campaigns or by helping elect politicians who legislate against those rights.

“What a pity that Bloomberg doesn’t practice what he preaches,” Gottlieb concluded.

BELLEVUE, WA — When anti-gun California Senator Barbara Boxer found herself confronted by Bernie Sanders supporters last week and she “feared for her safety,” she surrounded herself with security, but the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today suggested an alternative: Maybe she should get a firearm.

“Oh, wait,” acknowledged CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Boxer has traditionally supported restrictive gun laws to keep people disarmed, so she should try buying a gun and find out firsthand what it’s like to be treated the same way as her constituents. She will discover that the laws she has favored are designed to keep average citizens unarmed and unable to defend themselves when they fear for their safety.”

Boxer is a perennial anti-gunner who has always gone along with every gun control scheme her Democrat colleagues could dream up. Though she has managed to remain somewhat in the shadow of her more outspoken gun-grabbing colleague, Sen. Dianne Feinstein when it comes to guns, Boxer is no less a gun prohibitionist.

“Senator Boxer should consider what happened at the Nevada Democratic Convention as a learning moment,” Gottlieb suggested. “But with her record on guns, it’s doubtful she can really learn anything, because it would require her to give up her delusions about guns and abandon her double standard about who should be protected.

“Not everybody has the luxury of professional security around them,” he observed. “Boxer’s hypocrisy should be remembered by her constituents. She has labored to keep them vulnerable to threats while she has benefitted from the security provided by people with guns.

“We think Barbara Boxer should either give up her security and maybe get a gun for her own protection,” Gottlieb concluded, “or she should forever after keep her mouth shut when it comes to new restrictions on the general public. She has been having it both ways for far too long, and last week’s incident with Bernie backers should be a lesson.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Wednesday’s tragic shooting incident on the UCLA campus in California serves as yet another reminder that restrictive gun control laws and so-called “gun-free zones” provide a dangerous illusion, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, including universal background checks, and state lawmakers are presently working to add more,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But those laws, and the fact that firearms are not allowed on California college and university campuses, has once again provided a false sense of safety to the thousands of students and faculty affected by Wednesday’s crime, which appears to be a murder-suicide.

“While authorities are still sorting out what happened,” he added, “it is clear that simply writing a law or adopting a rule is not going to deter someone bent on committing a violent act. It should have been abundantly clear after San Bernardino that pursuing a policy of restrictive gun control has been a failure in the Golden State.

“Sadly,” Gottlieb observed, “too many lawmakers in Sacramento are deliberately blind to this fact, and their likely reaction to the UCLA incident will be to propose still more laws that only restrict the rights of law-abiding California residents. That’s not common sense, it’s nonsense.”

Gottlieb extended his sympathy to the victim and his family, and the UCLA community. He also congratulated university police and Los Angeles police for their quick response.

“It is both amazing and disappointing that some people still consider designating an area as ‘gun-free’ and passing a bunch of gun control laws is going to somehow deter, much less prevent, anyone from causing mayhem,” Gottlieb stated. “Someone determined to cause harm is not going to be dissuaded by a sign or a statute. It is about time that state lawmakers, gun control extremists and newspaper editorial writers figured that out.”