BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today said a federal jury in South Carolina did right what anti-gunners have been doing wrong for decades, by convicting a killer who misused a firearm, rather than holding every gun owner in America responsible for the crime.

“By convicting Dylann Roof for the slayings of nine church members at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston last year, the jury properly placed responsibility for that terrible crime squarely on the shoulders of the man who did it,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “The system worked, the law worked, and this verdict affirms that individuals are accountable for their crimes, while penalizing all American firearms owners is nonsense.”

Gottlieb recalled that gun prohibition lobbying groups exploited the tragedy to push their political agenda against gun owners. He is co-author of “Dancing in Blood: Exposing the Gun Ban Lobby’s Playbook to Destroy Your Rights” and the more recent “Right to Carry.”

“For a while,” he said, “it seemed like every gun owner in America, along with their right to keep and bear arms, was on trial. Instead of focusing on bringing a murderer to justice, the anti-rights lobby literally capitalized on the crime in an effort to erode the rights of millions of American citizens who have harmed nobody.

“What Roof did was unconscionable and reprehensible,” Gottlieb observed. “But he did it all by himself. Tens of millions of honest firearms owners, including some 15 million who are licensed to carry for personal protection, were just as horrified by his attack as everyone else. We all shared the grief, but we do not share the responsibility. That is a burden Dylann Roof will have to bear on his own.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is today encouraging its members and supporters to contact their U.S. Senators and urge them to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions as the next United States Attorney General.

“Jeff Sessions is a man who clearly understands the Second Amendment as well as the rest of the Bill of Rights,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He doesn’t merely ‘support’ the Second Amendment with lip service, he has defended it against erosion by anti-gunners during his Capitol Hill career.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee will take up Sessions’ nomination Tuesday morning.

“Senate confirmation of Jeff Sessions as our next Attorney General will bring about much-needed change at the Department of Justice,” Gottlieb continued. “Instead of promoting or defending schemes that impact law-abiding Americans, his track record shows that he will go after genuine criminals.

“Senator Sessions has fought proposals that sought to ban firearms,” he added, “and he also opposed the nominations of both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court because of their anti-Second Amendment records.”

Gottlieb recently suggested that the next Attorney General appoint an assistant whose job will be to seek out and challenge state and local gun laws that infringe on the Second Amendment.

“The nation is in serious need of an attorney general who knows the difference between civil rights and criminal wrongs,” Gottlieb concluded.

The U.S. Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. To reach your senator via e-mail, log onto http://www.senate.gov/general/contacting.htm

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is today encouraging its members and supporters to contact their U.S. Senators and urge them to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions as the next United States Attorney General.
“Jeff Sessions is a man who clearly understands the Second Amendment as well as the rest of the Bill of Rights,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He doesn’t merely ‘support’ the Second Amendment with lip service, he has defended it against erosion by anti-gunners during his Capitol Hill career.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee will take up Sessions’ nomination Tuesday morning.
“Senate confirmation of Jeff Sessions as our next Attorney General will bring about much-needed change at the Department of Justice,” Gottlieb continued. “Instead of promoting or defending schemes that impact law-abiding Americans, his track record shows that he will go after genuine criminals.
“Senator Sessions has fought proposals that sought to ban firearms,” he added, “and he also opposed the nominations of both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court because of their anti-Second Amendment records.”
Gottlieb recently suggested that the next Attorney General appoint an assistant whose job will be to seek out and challenge state and local gun laws that infringe on the Second Amendment.
“The nation is in serious need of an attorney general who knows the difference between civil rights and criminal wrongs,” Gottlieb concluded.
The U.S. Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. To reach your senator via e-mail, log onto http://www.senate.gov/general/contacting.htm

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is condemning Seattle Mayor Ed Murray for “monumental hypocrisy” after he declared that the City of Seattle will fight a new Trump administration directive on so-called “sanctuary cities” by going to court to “insure…that the United States Constitution is not violated.”

“When it comes to violating the Constitution, Ed Murray has expert experience,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This is the guy who was publicly embarrassed in 2013 when, as a state senator, he sponsored a gun ban bill that would have allowed warrantless searches of gun owners’ homes by sheriff’s deputies. After that was reported, Murray and his co-sponsors scrambled to remove that language from the bill, but it still failed.”

Gottlieb accused Murray of “trotting out the Constitution only when he can use it for a political prop.”

“Murray would eviscerate the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb said. “He signed a gun violence tax into law that penalizes law-abiding firearms owners and amounts to a poll tax. He has a track record of supporting gun control, including an attempt to ban an entire class of firearms.”

Gottlieb was especially alarmed at Murray’s outspoken defense of “immigrants, regardless of their documentation,” telling a crowd Wednesday that, “These are not criminals, these are our friends, these are our neighbors.”

“Not always, Ed,” Gottlieb challenged. “Jill Marie Sundberg was murdered in Grant County last month and now the authorities have charged three men with the crime. Two other men are being held as material witnesses. All five are in this country illegally. So, tell us, Ed, do you want these fellows as your neighbors?

“Our sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, has successfully defended the gun rights of legal resident aliens in court,” Gottlieb noted. “But that’s not the point. Murray hides behind the constitution to serve his liberal political agenda, but he’s never been worried about stepping on the Second Amendment. If you defend the constitution, you have to defend all of it. If you expect gun owners to obey the gun laws, you need to obey the immigration laws. Only a hypocrite would expect to have it any other way.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy is trying to solve his state’s $3.6 billion budget deficit by forcing the state’s gun owners to empty their wallets in order to exercise a constitutional right, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Malloy is proposing an increase on the cost of the state’s portion of the pistol permit more than 400 percent, from $70 to $300, according to the New Haven Register. With the $70 local fee, that brings the cost to $370. Five-year renewal fees would rise to $300.

“This is an outrage,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb declared. “Malloy hates guns and the people who own them, and now he’s essentially trying to rob them blind to help make up for his own fiscal failure as the state’s chief executive. That’s not simply disgusting, it’s despicable.”

The newspaper report also said Malloy wants to raise the background check fee from $50 to $75, a 50-percent increase. It is estimated that these fee hikes would raise $11.6 million, including $2.6 million for just the background check fee hike.

“Governor Malloy obviously thinks it is okay to levy an outrageous fee hike on the exercise of a civil right,” Gottlieb observed. “How ironic that Connecticut is known as the Constitution State. The result of this will be a financial burden on the poor and middle-class gun owners. Evidently Malloy thinks gun ownership is a privilege reserved only for the wealthy because with this budget proposal, it is clear that he is trying to make lawful gun ownership beyond the reach of average wage earners.

“These proposed fee hikes are the equivalent of a poll tax,” he added. “Malloy apparently thinks this is acceptable because it penalizes something he doesn’t like, but it doesn’t pass the smell test. Connecticut gun owners are justifiably alarmed if not downright furious. It’s no wonder why there are now 31 Republican governors and only 18 Democrat governors with Malloy as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The Washington State House Judiciary Committee is meeting Thursday in Olympia for an executive session during which they will vote on two gun control measures, HB 1387 and HB 1122, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

“We are urging every gun owner in the state to contact committee members,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “House Bill 1387 requires licensing and registration of so-called ‘assault weapons’ and ‘large capacity’ ammunition magazines. The other bill, HB 1122, is a vaguely written attempt to micro-manage every gun owner in the state with a storage mandate that could criminalize anyone who does not comply.”

During testimony earlier this month, gun owners, collectors and retired law enforcement opposed the measures.

“HB 1387 is especially alarming because we’ve seen the same strategy before, in California, where an entire class of firearms has been gradually and increasingly restricted,” Gottlieb said. “The bill turns a right into a government-regulated privilege.”

Here’s what HB 1387 says:

(1)(a) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, a person shall not possess, manufacture, transport, purchase, acquire, transfer, deliver, import, sell, or offer to sell an assault weapon or large capacity magazine without being in possession of an assault weapon license issued pursuant to section 3 of this act.

(b) The assault weapon license must list each assault weapon or large capacity magazine currently in the license holder’s possession. A listed assault weapon must include the make, model, and manufacturer’s number. A listed large capacity magazine must include a description including the make, caliber, and capacity of the magazine.

CCRKBA encourages gun owners, especially the more than 100,000 people who could be directly affected by the licensing scheme, to contact the House Judiciary Committee members. Also, call the in-state toll-free Legislative Hotline at 800-562-6000 and leave a message for the committee, and your individual district representatives.

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today congratulated the U.S. Senate for its 57-43 vote to block an Obama administration regulation that threatened the Second Amendment rights of tens of thousands of Social Security beneficiaries.

The Obama administration regulation required the Social Security Administration to submit the names of SS recipients with apparent “mental impairments” who had third parties manage their benefits to the federal National Instant Background Check System (NICS) to block their ability to buy firearms. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.

“This rule was more about disqualifying as many people as possible from exercising their Second Amendment Rights than it ever was about public safety,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Even the American Civil Liberties union opposed Obama’s overreaching restriction. We are delighted that the Senate voted to rescind this regulation, and we encourage gun owners to politely contact the White House and ask President Trump to sign it.”

Gottlieb noted that gun owners have been among the regulation’s harshest critics, adding, “And I’m one of them.”

“The Obama restriction was overly broad, and threatened the rights of an estimated 75,000 people,” he stated. “We couldn’t stand by and allow people with disabilities to be essentially demonized by a regulation from an anti-gun administration, so we were happy that so many gun owners made their voices heard on Capitol Hill.

“There are far better ways to deal with people who have mental disabilities than to stigmatize them by lumping their names in with criminals,” Gottlieb observed. “President Trump’s signature on this measure will be one more step toward making the Second Amendment great again.”

BELLEVUE, WA — The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms urges Georgia members and all other gun owners in the state to contact lawmakers about three important pro-gun bills under consideration in the General Assembly.

Three bills backed by GeorgiaCarry.org have the chance to become law this year with your support. These three bills are:
• HB 280: Firearms; license holders, carrying and possession of certain weapons in certain buildings or real property owned or leased to public institutions of postsecondary education by Rep. Ballinger of the 23rd
• HB 292: Firearms; laws relating to the carrying of weapons and safety; revise and clarify; by Rep. Jasperse of the 11th
• HB 406: Weapons; reciprocity of recognizing and giving effect to licenses to carry from other states; revise requirements by Rep. Powell of the 32nd

“With only five days left to ‘Crossover Day,’ this coming Friday, March 3, it is important that we focus on the bills that actually have a chance to move our agenda forward this year,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Georgia Carry has helped advance three pro-rights bills including HB-280-the campus carry bill, HB 292-revising and clarifying laws relating to the carrying of weapons in Georgia, and HB 406-reciprocity recognition and giving effect to carry licenses to other states.

Georgia Carry and its membership have worked diligently to advance a pro-gun rights agenda in the state legislature that actually have a chance to pass this year, as they do every year. Their efforts are strongly supported by your CCRKBA and prove year after year why GeorgiaCarry.org remains the states preeminent pro-rights organization that doesn’t just talk but actually gets things done, year after year, on behalf of Georgia’s responsibly armed citizens.”

“Now is the time to contact your state representative and ask them to pass Georgia Carry supported bills HB 280-campus carry, omnibus bill HB 292, and HB 406 which protects Georgia CCW holders reciprocity. Crossover day is Friday, March 3rd. Your action is required now to advance our pro-rights agenda in 2017.”—Mark Walters, Nationally syndicated host of Armed American Radio and Armed American Radio’s Daily Defense, and member of the CCRKBA Board of Directors

“There now only five days left to move HB 280-campus carry, HB 292-omnibus bill, and HB 406 correcting potential reciprocity issues and permanently fixing GA/VA reciprocal agreements. GeorgiaCarry.org strongly supports these GeorgiaCarry.org backed bills which will further expand gun rights not only in Georgia but across the country as well. Please contact your representatives and politely request they support advancing our gun rights by supporting these bills.”—Jerry Henry, Executive Director, GeorgiaCarry.org

“These bills protect and advance our RKBA now and for future generations. As we continue to work and support the advancement of pro-gun rights throughout the nation, the CCRKBA is proud to work with organizations such as GeorgiaCarry.org. Now is the time to contact your state representatives and ask that they pass these bills out of the House, over to the Senate and subsequently over to the governor’s desk for signature. With five days left to do so, your efforts are urgently requested.”—CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today applaud the U.S. Senate for confirming Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus restoring the high court’s full complement, and maintaining a philosophical balance important to upholding and enforcing the U.S. Constitution.

Gorsuch was confirmed on a 54-45 vote just before noon Friday.

“Judge Gorsuch demonstrated during two days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he is eminently qualified to occupy the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The court has been shy one critical vote and voice for more than a year. We are delight that time has come to an end.”

“President Trump kept his word to voters,” Gottlieb concluded, “by nominating a superb jurist with an originalist approach to interpreting the Constitution, and particularly the Bill of Rights, as the Founders intended.

The Oregon Senate will reportedly vote tonight, Tuesday April 18th, on three bills that would further infringe your right to keep and bear arms.

These bills make your constitutional right to keep and bear arms more difficult without solving actual problems. CCRKBA is urging its members and supporters in Oregon to contact the State Senate today.

• SB797 would allow law enforcement remove your right to purchase by delaying a background check approval forever. Delays in background checks are common and often are resolved with additional investigation. Often delays involve clerical errors or just clearing up issues between similar names. Should SB797 become law Oregon State Patrol would have no obligation to approve delayed requests, as they do now.

• SB 868 would allow third parties (family or law enforcement) to take firearms away from people who allegedly pose a danger to themselves or others. There are many laws that can be used to control dangerous people, all with important standards of evidence that this law bypasses. Rather than firearms, people who are a danger to themselves or others should get the focus and the help they need. This proposed law is badly thought out and would accomplish nothing new.

• SB 764 directs the Oregon State Police to spend taxpayer money to report on why CHLs are denied. Committee leadership has said it will be amended but the amendments are not yet public.

Please take action now. Contact the Oregon Senate and urge them to oppose these bills. Find your state senator here: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/senate/Pages/SenatorsAll.aspx

Governor Kate Brown’s office is available at (503) 378-4582

BELLEVUE, WA – A new report from Scotland Yard reveals that a “significant spike in knife and gun offenses” has occurred in the United Kingdom, throwing cold water on the notion that restrictive British gun and knife laws have made that nation safer, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

According to Scotland Yard, there has been a 42 percent increase in so-called “gun violence” and a 24 percent rise in “knife offenses” during the 2016-2017 financial year.

“All the rhetoric we’ve heard over the years about how the British solved their crime problem by having law-abiding citizens turn in their guns, and adopting strict knife and gun control has suddenly turned out to be wishful thinking, if not simply wrong,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Like gun control efforts anywhere, the Brits have disarmed the wrong people.

“It is ironic that this news appears now, as America celebrates the 242nd anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, when American colonists resisted Britain’s attempt to confiscate arms from the militia,” he added. “British gun control then ignited a revolution. Now it is just resulting in a higher violent crime rate.”

The famous battles occurred on April 19, 1775 after someone fired “the shot heard ‘round the world.”

Scotland Yard’s report shows something else. There were 12,074 knife-related crimes in the 2016-2017 financial year, which demonstrates that criminals will resort to whatever weapon they can get their hands on against a unilaterally-disarmed public. This has happened at the same time that law enforcement budget cuts are in the news.

“British ruffians are no different than criminals in the United States,” Gottlieb observed. “They will take advantage of any weakness the see, whether in law enforcement or the public’s inability to defend against an attack. This is why we fight so hard to protect our nation’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and why our friends across the pond should seriously reconsider how their policies have made their citizens more vulnerable to people who routinely ignore the law.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Lifelong Washington State resident and veteran Second Amendment activist Boyd Kneeland has joined the staff at the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as its new Projects Director, succeeding the late Ray Carter, who passed away in 2016.

Kneeland brings a wealth of experience to the position. He formerly worked for the Second Amendment Foundation in 2003 in Communications, and he also serves as president of the Washington Arms Collectors, a statewide gun collector’s organization that puts on the largest gun shows in the Evergreen State. WAC is affiliated with both CCRKBA and the National Rifle Association.

Kneeland, 55, has had a career in the tech industry, and until recently was providing enterprise technical support for IT professionals.

A graduate of Bellevue’s Sammamish High School, he attended Bellevue Community College, and has lived in Bellevue since 1976.

In addition to his professional endeavors, Kneeland is also an NRA Training Counselor and certified firearms instructor.

As Projects Director, Kneeland will be working with state level grassroots gun rights organizations around the country. He and Carter had worked together in the gun rights community and at the Arms Collectors’ group on various activities.

Illinois lawmakers are now considering Senate Bill 1657, a far reaching regulatory scheme aimed at firearms retailers that critics call “dangerous” an attempt to drive gun dealers out of business.

The Illinois House Judiciary Committee has passed SB 1657 earlier this week and it is now on “third reading,” which means it could come up for a vote at any moment. This legislation, according to its critics, adds mountains of red tape for Prairie State firearms dealers on top of the regulations already enforced by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms encourages its Illinois members to contact their state representatives about this legislation.

Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, said if the measure passes, it could be in direct conflict with existing state law. He also said it could cost firearms dealers more than $2 million, according to some estimates, and the number of gun retailers in the state could decline dramatically.

To find your lawmaker, visit the Illinois State Rifle Association’s website.

BELLEVUE, WA – Almost two years after the City of Seattle adopted a hastily-crafted “gun violence tax” ostensibly aimed at reducing so-called “gun violence,” city police statistics show a startling 17 percent increase in the number of police calls for gunshots, and an alarming 30 percent increase in the number of shooting victims.

“That ‘gun violence tax’ is been a monumental failure, and we are challenging Mayor Ed Murray and the Seattle City Council to publicly admit it,” declared Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, based in nearby Bellevue. “You simply cannot provide better evidence than the Seattle Police Department’s crime statistics of such a colossally stupid idea that has not worked.”

Almost immediately after the gun tax was signed by Murray, CCRKBA’s sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, was joined by the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation in an historic lawsuit to overturn the tax on the grounds that it violates the state preemption law that places sole authority to regulate firearms in the hands of the State Legislature. It is the first time all three gun rights organizations have partnered in a joint legal action.

SAF has also filed a separate lawsuit, along with the senior editor of its monthly magazine, TheGunMag.com, over Seattle’s failure to disclose revenue from the gun tax under the state Public Records Act. The city will only say the tax as brought in “less than $200,000,” which is well below revenue forecasts that ranged between $300,000 and $500,000 that were used to justify adoption of this gun control tax.

“The other night there was a homicide at Alki,” Gottlieb noted, “and the city is already ahead of previous years’ statistics on the number of reported shooting incidents. Thirty-six people have been shot so far this year, including four who have been killed. The Council and Mayor Murray should be ashamed now that the dismal failure of their gun control scheme has been exposed. They deceived Seattle citizens about how much their tax would raise and what it would accomplish, and they should be held accountable.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The third report on the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal strongly suggests that the Department of Justice under then-Attorney General Eric Holder engaged in obstruction of Congress, the Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“We took our time examining the 262-page report,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and we are appalled. It has taken six years since hearings were held in 2011 on that Obama administration scandal for this report to be released, and what this document shows is a pattern of deliberate stonewalling by an administration that claimed to be the most transparent in history.

“The report notes how Holder withheld thousands of documents and reached out to President Barack Obama to provide cover with executive privilege,” he continued. “It took two years before a federal judge ordered the DOJ to produce some of those documents, and by then, public interest had waned, almost as if by design.

“Fast and Furious,” Gottlieb observed, “had all the earmarks of a rogue operation that was best described by one federal agent as ‘the perfect storm of idiocy.’ The most disappointing thing of all is that nobody in any government agency was ever held accountable. While some people retired or resigned their positions or were reassigned, and Holder was held in contempt of Congress, that just doesn’t seem like enough.

“Information was withheld from Congress,” he added, “and from the family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The report even acknowledges that officials closest to the operation thwarted efforts to provide complete and accurate responses to congressional inquiries. Who does that unless they have something to hide?

“If anything,” Gottlieb concluded, “this report is a disturbing look at how government operated under Barack Obama and how the Obama-Holder Justice Department tried to keep Congress and the public in the dark about a scandal of monumental proportions. The Obama administration allowed guns to fall into the hands of criminals, and then the Justice Department lied about it just to further their anti-gun agenda.”

BELLEVUE, WA – A new report on concealed carry in the United States, with an updated estimate of more than 16.3 million legally licensed armed citizens, shows that a growing number of Americans are taking responsibility for their own safety, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

The 61-page report – “Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2017” – was released by the Crime Prevention Research Center this week. It was authored by CPRC founder John Lott, who will be speaking at the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Dallas Sept. 29-Oct. 1.

“John’s report comes at a critical moment when Congress should be discussing national concealed carry reciprocity legislation that was introduced in January,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We’re impressed with the numbers as the report suggests that interest in personal protection has continued to grow this year.

“It is particularly important to note that in 11 states, the report says 10 percent of the adult populations are licensed to carry,” he continued. “Across several states, the number of women who are getting permits and licenses is far outpacing the number of men. The only people who would be discouraged by this news are gun control lobbyists and criminals, which raises questions about whose side the gun control people are on.”

Among the findings: Outside of California and New York, about 8 percent of the adult population is licensed to carry. While Barack Obama was in office, the number of concealed carry permits and licenses increased a stunning 256 percent. Increased concealed carry from 2007 through 2015 (the most recent year for which complete data is available) coincided with a decline in the national murder rate, from 5.6 to 4.9 per 100,000 population.

“Our hats are off to John Lott for assembling this data,” Gottlieb stated. “What this report demonstrates is that Americans are taking the initiative, exercising their right to not only own firearms, but to carry them responsibly. It’s a refreshing return of self-reliance because people have realized that when seconds count, police are minutes away, despite their best efforts to fight crime. This is just one more way we can make the Second Amendment great again.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Gun owners in the southeast, Texas and other areas where the summer is producing flooding and record storms can benefit from some timely advice on gun maintenance and restoration from flooding, and how to handle submerged ammunition, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) offers a very useful guide on the subject titled “Guidance on Firearms That Have Been Submerged or Exposed to Extensive Amounts of Water.” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb advises anyone whose valuable firearms have been affected by flooding to get a copy.

Recovery from devastating environmental conditions involves time and attention to details. Proper gun care following a flood includes initial disassembly, cleaning with dry towels, and applying moisture-displacing lubricants to metal parts (barrel, action, etc.) without getting them on wood or synthetic materials. Optics should be cleaned and returned to the manufacturer for examination to determine whether seals have been damaged.

Such products as WD-40, Hoppes No. 9 MDL, Brownells LP-2 and similar products are recommended in the SAAMI bulletin. They are available at local gun shops, sporting goods stores and even hardware stores.

Always make sure firearms are unloaded prior to any maintenance or repair.

“Firearms can be damaged, but people shouldn’t simply write them off after a natural disaster like we’re seeing from this year’s hurricanes and tropical storms,” Gottlieb said. “We’re talking about valuable investments, and in some cases family heirlooms and guns can be saved.”

When it comes to ammunition, however, SAAMI’s advice is simple: “no attempt (should) be made to salvage or use previously submerged ammunition.” Rimfire ammunition is the most susceptible to damage by submersion, and even centerfire ammunition can be harmed. It is a good idea to contact a local law enforcement agency about ammunition disposal, SAAMI advises. Ammunition should not be shipped back to the manufacturer. Check SAAMI’s “Guidance on Ammunition That Has Been Submerged in Water.”

BELLEVUE, WA – In response to the senseless attack in Las Vegas, the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms have issued the following statement:

“The Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms support a productive dialogue concerning “bump stocks,” National Concealed Carry Reciprocity and the proposed Hearing Protection Act.

“We recognize that banning firearms accessories is not a solution to violent crime.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today applaud the U.S. Senate for confirming Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus restoring the high court’s full complement, and maintaining a philosophical balance important to upholding and enforcing the U.S. Constitution.

Gorsuch was confirmed on a 54-45 vote just before noon Friday.

“Judge Gorsuch demonstrated during two days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he is eminently qualified to occupy the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The court has been shy one critical vote and voice for more than a year. We are delight that time has come to an end.”

“President Trump kept his word to voters,” Gottlieb concluded, “by nominating a superb jurist with an originalist approach to interpreting the Constitution, and particularly the Bill of Rights, as the Founders intended.

The Oregon Senate will reportedly vote tonight, Tuesday April 18th, on three bills that would further infringe your right to keep and bear arms.

These bills make your constitutional right to keep and bear arms more difficult without solving actual problems. CCRKBA is urging its members and supporters in Oregon to contact the State Senate today.

• SB797 would allow law enforcement remove your right to purchase by delaying a background check approval forever. Delays in background checks are common and often are resolved with additional investigation. Often delays involve clerical errors or just clearing up issues between similar names. Should SB797 become law Oregon State Patrol would have no obligation to approve delayed requests, as they do now.

• SB 868 would allow third parties (family or law enforcement) to take firearms away from people who allegedly pose a danger to themselves or others. There are many laws that can be used to control dangerous people, all with important standards of evidence that this law bypasses. Rather than firearms, people who are a danger to themselves or others should get the focus and the help they need. This proposed law is badly thought out and would accomplish nothing new.

• SB 764 directs the Oregon State Police to spend taxpayer money to report on why CHLs are denied. Committee leadership has said it will be amended but the amendments are not yet public.

Please take action now. Contact the Oregon Senate and urge them to oppose these bills. Find your state senator here: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/senate/Pages/SenatorsAll.aspx

Governor Kate Brown’s office is available at (503) 378-4582