CCRKBA

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CCRKBA Slams Plea Deal For San Francisco Sheriff

March 13, 2012 by 1 Comment

Anti-gun San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi was given a sweetheart plea deal today that allows him to retain his gun rights and doesn’t charge him with a crime of domestic violence. Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms correctly points out that an ordinary person wouldn’t have been given such consideration.


CCRKBA SAYS SAN FRANCISCO SHERIFF’S PLEA DEAL SMACKS OF HYPOCRISY
Monday, March 12th, 2012

BELLEVUE, WA – The plea deal announced this morning that allows anti-gun San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi keep his guns in what began as a domestic violence case “smacks of hypocrisy at the highest order,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Mirkarimi pleaded guilty in San Francisco court this morning to what the San Francisco Chronicle described as “a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment in connection with an incident in which he allegedly inflicted a bruise on his wife.”

“As a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Ross Mirkarimi supported all manner of gun control schemes,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He had to surrender his guns when the charges were originally filed, and if similar charges had been filed against some gun rights activist or an average gun owner, you can bet Mirkarimi would be looking to pillory that person, and strip away their gun rights permanently.”

Under federal law, domestic violence convictions can cost people their Second Amendment rights permanently. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors reportedly dropped the domestic violence charge and two other misdemeanor counts.

“Why should Mirkarimi enjoy a double standard,” Gottlieb questioned. “Based on reports of what he allegedly did, any private citizen who did the same thing might be facing jail time. You can bet San Francisco prosecutors would not be cutting a deal that would allow that person to get his firearms back.

“Instead of getting his guns back under a sweet plea deal and retaining his job as sheriff,” he observed, “Mirkarimi ought to remain disarmed, and lose his job. Otherwise, from this date forward, San Francisco prosecutors need to apply the ‘Mirkarimi standard’ to every domestic violence case that hits their desk.

“Mirkarimi’s reputation as a double-standard elitist is now solidified,” Gottlieb said. “For a person who has advocated gun control for everyone else, he should be ashamed. Ross Mirkarimi can now be known as the High Sheriff of Low Behavior.”

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CCRKBA On Halligan Filibuster And The Rejection Of Cloture

December 7, 2011 by

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms opposed Caitlin Halligan from the start and sent out over 1 million emails asking people to contact their Senators. Here is their statement on the Senate refusing to invoke cloture (end the filibuster) on the debate over he confirmation of Halligan.

SENATE LISTENS TO CCRKBA, VOTES ‘NO’ ON OBAMA COURT NOMINEE

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

BELLEVUE, WA – Grassroots power has helped derail President Obama’s nomination of anti-gun extremist Caitlin Halligan to the District of Columbia Circuit Court, with keystone opposition from members and supporters of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

“We sent out more than one million e-mail alerts to gun owners across the country, warning them of Halligan’s anti-gun philosophy,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and it is clear from today’s 54-45 Senate vote against cloture, thus rejecting Halligan’s nomination, that their voices were heard loud and clear.”

The CCRKBA mailing identified Halligan as a “liberal agitator and a fervent gun hater” who “pushed to bankrupt gun manufacturers in New York with frivolous lawsuits.”

“After the disastrous appointments of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court,” Gottlieb said, “we could not stand silently while Obama put forth his most radical anti-gun nominee for a lifetime appointment to one of the most influential federal courts in the nation.

“Tuesday’s vote,” he continued, “is proof that gun owners are wise to Obama’s anti-gun strategy. He may not be able to pass legislation, but his legacy could be a federal court system stacked with gun-grabbing judges who will do whatever it takes to erase the landmark Second Amendment victories before the Supreme Court in the Heller and McDonald cases.

“We are delighted and proud that our members and supporters told the Senate that this is where it ends,” Gottlieb said. “We are not going to allow President Obama the chance to saddle our country and our Constitution with people like Halligan, who are clearly hostile to the Second Amendment.

“There is no place in the federal judiciary for anyone who so vigorously opposes one of our most cherished civil rights,” he concluded. “We’re gratified that a majority in the Senate understands this.”

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Citizen Committee On Passage Of HR 822 By The House

November 17, 2011 by

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms released a statement late yesterday applauding the House for passing HR 822 – the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011. As Alan Gottlieb notes, this fight is not about a state’s rights but about an individual’s rights.

CCRKBA LAUDS HOUSE PASSAGE OF NAT’L CONCEALED CARRY MEASURE
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms lauded today’s 272-154 majority vote by the House of Representatives on passage of H.R. 822, the National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011.

“We’re delighted at the outcome of this important legislation in the House,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “especially since the floor debate brought out all of the tired old cliché arguments. Congressional anti-gunners pulled out all the stops, but their rhetoric could not derail this common sense measure.

“As so many of the bill’s proponents wisely pointed out during the debate,” he continued, “citizens do not leave their self-defense rights at a state border. Those who would argue otherwise evidently have no interest in public safety.

“What was remarkable,” Gottlieb observed, “is how many self-defense opponents suddenly discovered the cause of states’ rights as an excuse to oppose this legislation. This measure is not about state’s rights, it’s about individual rights.”

The vote found seven Republicans voting against the measure and 43 Democrats supporting it.

“How the bill fares when it reaches the Senate remains to be seen,” Gottlieb noted, “but this recorded House vote will give the nation’s firearms owners a chance to see how their Congressional representative feels about their rights under the Second Amendment, and about the safety of their families when they travel across state lines.

“House members can give all the lip service they want to the Second Amendment,” he concluded, “but it is votes like this that separate the superficial from the sincere.”

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“Blaming Bush Is So Yesterday”

November 9, 2011 by

Alan Gottlieb can turn a phrase with the best of them. In a release for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, he chided Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein for their attempts to blame gunwalking on George Bush by saying “blaming Bush is so yesterday.”

CCRKBA BLASTS SENATE ANTI-GUNNERS FOR SHIFTING BLAME ON GUN WALKING

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

BELLEVUE, WA – Today’s hearing on Operation Fast and Furious before the Senate Judiciary Committee once again provided an opportunity for two leading Senate gun prohibitionists to try spreading the blame for botched gun trafficking, and change the debate to arguments for more gun control, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

The committee questioned Attorney General Eric Holder for two hours on Fast and Furious, and other Justice Department issues. But it was about the seriously mishandled gun trafficking investigation where committee partisans tried their bait-and-switch routine, CCRKBA said.

“Senators Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein tried to link discredited gun walking tactics to the earlier Bush-era Operation Wide Receiver,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Blaming Bush is ‘so yesterday’, while their gun control agenda is on tap for tomorrow.”

Texas Sen. John Cornyn revealed the stark differences between Wide Receiver, conducted with the full cooperation of the Mexican government, and the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious, done specifically without the knowledge of Mexican authorities, or our own officials assigned to Mexico City.

“It’s outrageous, but predictable, that these two partisan gun control fanatics would try such a ruse to confuse the public, and the issue,” Gottlieb stated.

Holder’s definition of a new mandatory multiple long gun sales reporting regulation as a “reasonable requirement” is a tipoff, Gottlieb said. It’s the first step toward a nationwide regulation that could turn into a back-door registry of all semiautomatic modern sport-utility rifles under an anti-gun White House and Congress, he suggested.

Schumer concentrated on linking Fast and Furious to the Bush administration, while criticizing the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been “selective” in its focus.

“Schumer and Feinstein want to waste time and deflect public attention by blaming Bush while quietly promoting their own anti-gun agenda,” Gottlieb said. “They may as well have used President Obama’s teleprompters from which to read their lines.”

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CCRKBA Blasts NY Governor Cuomo’s Proposal For Closing Prisons And More Gun Control

September 21, 2011 by 2 Comments

In a speech given at the kickoff breakfast for the African-American Day Parade in New York City’s Harlem, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) called for shutting down some prisons in order to save money. He also called for more Federal gun control.

Cuomo also pushed for stricter gun control laws from the federal government.

“It has been decades where we have been fighting Washington for sensible laws controlling guns and we need those laws passed and we need them passed now. We’re losing too many people out in the streets,” he said.

Lest it be forgotten, when he was Bill Clinton’s Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Cuomo was responsible for pushing extortion-like lawsuits against gun manufacturers and for signing the infamous agreement with Smith and Wesson that allowed the government to mandate many so-called safety features. That agreement was signed only after the government essentially said “sign or we’ll sue you out of business.” It was later repudiated by the new owners of Smith and Wesson.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has responded to Cuomo’s new call for gun control with a blistering response.

BELLEVUE, WA – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call for more gun control laws while advocating the closure of prisons in a Sunday speech proves he is “drinking too much of Michael Bloomberg’s Kool-Aid,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Gov. Cuomo made his comments during a Harlem breakfast prior to the African-American Day parade, according to the New York Daily News. He reportedly said closing some prisons would release more funding for local programs.

“If Andrew Cuomo thinks keeping thugs out of prison, so he can pump the money into some community program while pushing for further disarmament of potential crime victims makes sense,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “he’s been breathing too much of the same air as the mayor of New York City. The other day, Bloomberg was babbling about riots in the streets if the government doesn’t ‘do something’ about creating jobs. It now appears Andrew Cuomo wants to keep hoodlums working, in the neighborhoods, in the convenience stores, on the streets; anywhere they can rob and steal from honest citizens.”

Gov. Cuomo also complained that we could send a person to Harvard University for the same amount it costs to incarcerate them.

“Well,” Gottlieb said, “that certainly makes sense. Let’s just move thugs to college campuses. Maybe the governor thinks criminals will climb the ladder of success by robbing a more affluent class of victims.

“Andrew Cuomo and Michael Bloomberg apparently live in the same fantasy world,” Gottlieb said. “They want to throw government money around, either to invent make-work jobs that accomplish nothing, or to pad some social program at the expense of much-needed jail space, while working overtime to disarm law-abiding citizens. They’re not in the State of New York; they’re in a state of confusion.”

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CCRKBA Says Holder Should Have Resigned Instead

August 30, 2011 by 2 Comments

Alan Gottlieb doesn’t mince words. He says that Eric Holder should have resigned instead of engaging in a “shell game” of reassignment.

HOLDER PLAYS ‘SHELL GAME’ AT JUSTICE, SHOULD RESIGN INSTEAD, SAYS CCRKBA

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

BELLEVUE, WA – Today’s replacement of Kenneth Melson as acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a political charade by the man who really ought to tender his resignation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. That man is Attorney General Eric Holder.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb called for Holder’s resignation after this morning’s announcements that Melson was being “reassigned” and replaced. This action appears to be an attempt by Holder to convince people he is taking action in response to the Fast and Furious scandal, now being investigated by Congress.

“Holder is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic,” Gottlieb stated. “Today’s announcements will do nothing to restore America’s confidence in the BATF or the Justice Department so long as Eric Holder remains the Attorney General.

“The ultimate responsibility for Fast and Furious lies with Holder,” he continued. “Melson is just the latest player to be shifted around, rather than lose his job. Everyone directly involved in the Fast and Furious scandal has simply been moved to another position. There has been no discipline and no accountability, because the man who should be ultimately accountable is still running the Justice Department.”

Gottlieb called today’s announcement “self-serving” for Holder, who is “looking out for his own interests.”

“That’s the only thing that is really transparent about this entire administration,” Gottlieb observed. “They are looking out for themselves, and playing administrative games when they should step up to the plate and accept responsibility for this scandal. Several people have been moved from the ATF office in Phoenix to other jobs, especially in Washington, D.C. because of Fast and Furious.

“If there had not been significant wrong-doing,” he said, “none of these moves would have been made. This is an admission of guilt by the Obama administration without saying so. And where is the president in all of this? Maybe he’s hiding out on the ninth hole of a golf course.”

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CCRKBA On The British Riots And Need To Keep And Bear Arms

August 10, 2011 by

Brit Riots Show Need for Right to Keep and Bear Arms

BELLEVUE, WA – Widespread rioting, arson and looting across London clearly demonstrates the need in any civilized society for the right to personal protection and the tools to make it possible, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Rioting that reportedly began over the police shooting of a man over the weekend has now exploded into anarchy, leaving British citizens stunned and fearful. People have been forced to flee from their homes. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb noted that in Great Britain, where firearms are so strictly regulated that relatively few people own them legally, and self-defense is treated like a criminal offense, citizens are literally at the mercy of the mob.

“One wonders if the thugs now terrorizing British citizens would behave better if they thought their next intended victim might be armed and willing to fight back,” Gottlieb observed. “How would these rioters fare if citizens were able to defend their homes and businesses?”

Gottlieb, co-author of America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, noted that the riots suggest far more is at work than anger over a shooting.

“The Second Amendment has provided American citizens with the means, and the tools, to protect themselves, their families and their property,” he observed. “Rather than flee from their homes as is now happening in some London neighborhoods, people should be able to defend what is theirs rather than surrender the streets to a mob.

“Evidently,” Gottlieb added, “Americans understand that. According to data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, people in this country – despite the economy – are buying increasing numbers of firearms. There was an 8.3 percent rise in the number of background checks with the National Instant Check System in July over the same month last year. This has been going on now for 14 straight months, according to the data.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent citizens of London,” he concluded. “Anarchy is always easier when people lack the means to protect their homes and neighborhoods.”

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Gottlieb On Cummings’ Forum – “It’s a Capitol Hill kangaroo court”

June 30, 2011 by

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Alan Gottlieb don’t think much of the “forum” that Rep. Elijah Cummings has planned for Thursday. And I think most people will see it for what it is – a smokescreen, a diversionary tactic, a whitewash to take the attention off of Project Gunwalker.

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said Thursday’s planned forum on gun trafficking, called by Democrat Congressman Elijah Cummings, is a political smokescreen designed to shift blame for a botched gun sting operation from the Obama administration to this country’s gun owners, retailers and their firearms civil rights.

Cummings, ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has held hearings on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Operation Fast and Furious, has invited a Who’s Who of anti-gunners to speak at this forum, which begins at 10 a.m. tomorrow in the Russell Senate Office Building, Room 428A.

“This isn’t a forum,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “It’s a Capitol Hill kangaroo court with the singular goal of deflecting public attention away from the Justice Department’s horrible mishandling of a gunrunning sting that has flooded Mexico with guns. Operation Fast and Furious is a product of the Obama administration, and Cummings is running interference for the White House and Attorney General Eric Holder.

“The real culprits here are the ATF officials and people in the Justice Department who either approved this operation or knew about it and allowed it to happen, and everybody knows it,” he continued. “Operation Fast and Furious allowed guns to get into the hands of people who murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and countless Mexican citizens, including a prominent attorney.

“But Cummings isn’t interested in pursuing the truth,” Gottlieb stated. “With a speaker lineup that includes anti-gun Sen. Charles Schumer, Kristen Rand from the Violence Policy Center and Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke – and nobody representing any major gun rights organization or any of the ATF whistleblowers – this forum is a flimsy sham with one clear purpose. Mr. Cummings wants to whitewash a Justice Department debacle and blame the mayhem in Mexico on gun rights, gun owners and gun dealers.”

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Special Prosecutor Time?

June 16, 2011 by

Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens’ Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms thinks the time is right for a Special Prosecutor in the Project Gunwalker scandal. He may well be right. The CCRKBA’s release is below.

BELLEVUE, WA – Following more than four hours of testimony before a House committee today by a U.S. Senator, government whistleblowers and relatives of a slain Border Patrol agent, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is calling for the immediate suspension, without pay, of all supervisors involved in a controversial gunrunning sting operation, including the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and his deputies, and the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and determine who initiated this project and who approved it.

Operation Fast and Furious was the ATF’s botched gun trafficking investigation in Arizona that allowed more than 2,000 guns to be moved into a criminal pipeline leading straight to Mexico. Today’s stunning revelations under oath by ATF agents before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggest there were willful violations of ATF policy and procedures that were allegedly ordered by supervisors in Phoenix with the knowledge of the agency hierarchy in Washington, D.C.

“Today’s hearing revealed one outrage after another,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb. “Everybody who was involved in this debacle must be held accountable. That can only happen if there is an independent prosecutor, someone who cannot be influenced by the Justice Department.

“It is clear that members of Congress have been stonewalled,” he continued. “We share Congressman Darrell Issa’s outrage at the conduct of the Justice Department, and particularly the ATF. They’re supposed to be preventing criminals from getting firearms, not facilitating it.

“We think an independent prosecutor is important for another reason,” Gottlieb added. “Attempts by some members of the House Oversight committee to politicize this investigation are disappointing. Finding the truth about how this operation went wrong is not a launch pad for some new gun control effort. Don’t blame our gun laws and gun rights for the criminal acts of people who should have been arrested before anybody got killed.

“For the present,” he concluded, “the ATF should be immediately put under the command of people who clearly understand that it is their job to prevent illegal gun trafficking, instead of allowing it to happen. There has been a serious lack of leadership and accountability, and that needs to be fixed today.”

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Joe Lieberman Reminded He Has The Wrong Target

May 19, 2011 by

Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, sent a letter yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder expressing his support for the multiple-rifle reporting requirement in the Southwest border states. In the letter Lieberman said:

I strongly support implementation of ATF’s proposal to enhance the Bureau’s investigative capabilities in its efforts to dismantle firearms smuggling rings.

David Codrea in his National Gun Rights Examiner column asks why Senator Lieberman hasn’t been doing more to push the investigation into Project Gunwalker if he is concerned with semi-auto rifles crossing the border. It is a fair question. David also details some letters sent to Lieberman from a constituent in which Project Gunwalker was discussed.

Alan Gottlieb and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms are calling on Lieberman to support Senator Chuck Grassley in his efforts to investigate Operation Fast and Furious and get to the bottom of this scandal. While I do like Joe Lieberman on some things, it seems like he has always aided and abetted the gun controllers. Given that he represents a major firearms manufacturing state, I find this a bit strange.

CCRKBA TELLS LIEBERMAN: ‘INVESTIGATE ATF’

BELLEVUE, WA – After Senator Joseph Lieberman released contents of his letter to Attorney General Eric Holder supporting a proposed long gun sales reporting requirement in southwest states, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today urged Lieberman to instead support an on-going investigation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ botched Project Gunrunner.

In a letter to Sen. Lieberman, CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb reminded him that press reports and documents relating to Gunrunner indicate that the ATF “abetted the movement of firearms into the illicit gun market, and ultimately to drug cartels in Mexico.” Gottlieb also expressed his surprise that Lieberman’s letter to Holder did not mention either Gunrunner or Operation Fast-and-Furious, a project handled by the Phoenix ATF field office. Both of those efforts are believed to have let thousands of guns to be “walked” into the hands of Mexican criminals.

“I am astonished that you now support a strategy that places firearms dealers and their customers under additional scrutiny of an agency that may very well be largely responsible for creating a problem you now expect it to resolve,” Gottlieb wrote. “The agency to which you now advocate giving more power over firearms transactions in southwest states was responsible for allowing criminal suspects to complete multiple purchases of so-called ‘assault rifles,’ despite the concerns of those licensed dealers you would have ATF micro-manage, and over the objections of its own field agents.”

Gottlieb reminds the senator that ATF has recently shuffled its entire Phoenix management team, moving the two top agents who oversaw Fast-and-Furious to ATF headquarters in Washington, D.C., where one is now cooperating with investigations launched by Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa.

“It is not the southwest firearms dealers who need investigating, Senator, but the ATF,” he said. “It is not those gun dealers who should be held accountable for the flood of illicit firearms into Mexico, but the ATF officials who not only allowed it to happen, but encouraged it.

“Instead of supporting this new reporting strategy, I urge you to instead exercise your considerable influence to support Senator Grassley’s investigation of the Gunrunner controversy,” Gottlieb concluded.