This time the Alan is Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. He said he is willing to take Obama up on his offer to talk about firearms. He’d like to ask Obama about Project Gunrunner (aka Gunwalker) and Operation Fast and Furious.<\/p>\n
\nBELLEVUE, WA \u2013 While other gun rights groups reportedly have declined to participate in a \u201cnew discussion\u201d about firearms and crime with the Obama administration, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today it would be eager to talk with the White House, especially about the \u201cProject Gunrunner\u201d and \u201cFast and Furious\u201d scandals, where federal agents helped facilitate gun sales to suspected gunrunners.<\/p>\nCCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb acknowledged that his organization has not yet been asked to participate in the \u201cnew discussion\u201d outlined by President Barack Obama in an Op-Ed article that appeared in a Tucson newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever,\u201d he said, \u201cwe would be delighted to sit down with the president and talk about how his administration has supplied guns to criminals.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
Gottlieb said it seems odd that neither CCRKBA nor its sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), had not been invited to the table despite the president\u2019s desire to open a dialogue with gun rights advocates.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter all,\u201d he observed, \u201cit was SAF\u2019s Supreme Court case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, that solidified the Second Amendment\u2019s protection of an individual civil right that the president now seems to energetically embrace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we were to be invited,\u201d Gottlieb insisted, \u201cit won\u2019t be for a photo op. There are serious issues American gun owners want discussed, such as restoration of rights, national concealed carry reciprocity, cracking down on states like New Jersey, New York and California that routinely violate gun owners\u2019 rights, lifting the administration\u2019s ban on importation of historic WWII-era rifles, reining in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, especially the Phoenix office and its \u2018Fast and Furious\u2019 operation, and the nomination of anti-gun rights Andrew Traver to head BATFE. That\u2019s like putting an arsonist in charge of the U.S. Forest Service.<\/p>\n
Gottlieb said the president\u2019s timing for this new approach \u201cseems suspiciously like an effort to deflect public attention away from the growing \u201cProject Gunrunner\u201d and \u201cFast and Furious\u201d scandals, now that CBS, Fox News and other major news organizations have started probing the controversial operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Obama were really serious about opening a dialogue about firearms and crime,\u201d he said, \u201cit should not have taken him more than two years in the White House before claiming he wants to meet with gun rights advocates.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n