CCRKBA

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CCRKBA On Rahmbo’s Strong Arm Attempt

January 29, 2013 by

Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago is trying to use the “Chicago Way” to hurt firearms manufacturers. He has “suggested” to Bank of America and TD Bank that that should end lending to Sturm, Ruger and Smith & Wesson. Like most, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is taking a dim view of this.

RAHM EMANUEL USING COERCION AGAINST BANKS AND GUN MAKERS, SAYS CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is taking his demagoguery to a new level by attempting to coerce banks into refusing service to firearms manufacturers, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

CBS News in Chicago reported that Emanuel was pressuring two major banks, identified as Bank of America and TD Bank, to stop lines of credit to Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger, two of the largest gun makers in the industry. In letters to bank executives, Emanuel reportedly said he wanted to send a message to gun makers that they must buckle under to gun control measures being pushed by the Obama administration.

“This is outrageous,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Mayor Emanuel is acting like a Chicago gangster instead of a public servant, and we are very concerned that there might be legal ramifications. How dare the mayor engage in this kind of anti-gun lobbying effort, trying to cut off operating capital to a pair of perfectly legal companies that happen to be engaged in perhaps the most heavily-regulated business in the country.

“Gun owners and people who believe in the Bill of Rights should stop giving Chicago a line of credit by purchasing municipal bonds,” he added. “Rahm wants to send a message, and the nation should send him a reply.

“Mayor Emanuel is allegedly contending that lines of credit should dry up unless Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger submit to operating their businesses the way anti-gunners demand,” Gottlieb continued. “That conduct seems more in the realm of a street thug than a political leader, but then, again, we’re talking about a mayor who presides over a city with Draconian gun laws and a murder rate rivaling a Third World country.

Emanuel is a career anti-gunner who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, typically as point man on some kind of gun control effort.

“Mayor Emanuel seems to be under the illusion that he can force banks to act as his surrogates in an unrelenting campaign to crush the firearms industry and erase the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb said. “This is insidious and we hope the banks recognize it for the kind of below-the-belt political chicanery for which Chicago politicians have become famous. No wonder they sometimes refer to him as ‘The Godfather’.

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CCRKBA Responds To Obama’s Proposals

January 16, 2013 by



Alan Gottlieb and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms have issued a quick response to the legislative proposals and executive actions coming from the White House on gun control.

OBAMA MISSES TARGET DELIBERATELY


WITH ANTI-GUN AGENDA, SAYS
CCRKBA



BELLEVUE,
WA — President Barack Obama has deliberately missed the target with his
proposed gun control scheme, announced today at the White House,
because it is now clear he wants to blame law-abiding gun owners for the
actions of criminals and madmen, the Citizens Committee for the Right
to Keep and Bear Arms said.

“Suddenly Mr. Obama wants to get more criminal and mental
health records into the NICS background check data base and get a
permanent director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,”
observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Where has he been for the last
four years?”

Gottlieb noted that these proposals have been suggested in
the past and supported by the firearms community, but they have
repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. But now, as he exploits the Sandy Hook
school tragedy, these items are high on his anti-gun agenda.

“Perhaps he was too busy during his first term, while his
administration was running thousands of assault rifles, millions of
rounds of ammunition and countless high capacity magazines to violent
criminals and drug cartel thugs through his administration’s Fast &
Furious program,” Gottlieb observed. “Now he wants to take away our
Second Amendment rights when he and his friends have put more assault
weapons in the wrong hands than all of organized crime?

“These firearms have been used not only to kill a Border
Patrol agent, but also hundreds of people including women and children,”
he added. “This policy has resulted in more deaths and carnage than all
the mass shootings in the United States in last ten years.

“The measures being proposed by the president will not
prevent a repeat of the Sandy Hook tragedy, and he knows it,” Gottlieb
continued. “The initials ‘B. O.’ stand for more than Barack Obama. They
stand for the bad odor of his blame game.”

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CCRKBA Responds To Brady’s “Not About 2nd Amendment”

January 10, 2013 by

Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign, said yesterday after Biden’s meeting with him and other gun prohibitionists that it wasn’t a debate about the Second Amendment. Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms took great exception to that and issued this today.

Thursday, January 10th, 2013 .
.
BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today issued a bristling response to Brady Campaign President Dan Gross, who insisted as he left the White House meeting with Vice President Joe Biden that the current push for more gun control “is not a debate around the Second Amendment.”.
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“The hell it’s not,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb declared. “The right to keep and bear arms is at the core of this anti-gun campaign, and Dan Gross knows it.”.
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The Brady Campaign is one of several so-called “gun safety” organizations that have already met with Vice President Biden and his gun control task force. Gottlieb challenged that definition..
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“The Brady Campaign and other such organizations are all about gun prohibition, not safety,” he said. “They’re not interested in safety when all they want is to disarm law-abiding Americans and taking the best means of self-defense away from crime victims while doing nothing to disarm criminals..
.
“The White House calling the gun prohibition lobby a ‘gun safety’ group is tantamount to suggesting that Ted Bundy was an advocate for battered women,” he said.

In comments to reporters, Gross insisted that “Words like ‘comprehensive’ and ‘broad’ don’t mean taking guns away from law-abiding citizens.”

“That statement is so demonstrably untrue it’s ridiculous that he expects anyone to believe it,” Gottlieb said. “Banning an entire class of firearms based primarily on cosmetics is taking them away from people. Imposing extremist regulations on the exercise of a civil right amounts to taking that right away and treating gun ownership like a privilege.

“Among gun prohibitionists,” he concluded, “the definition of safety is disarmament. Sure they’re not debating ‘around the Second Amendment,’ they’re trying to erode it and ultimately erase it from the Bill of Rights. We’re not going to let them get away with it.”

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CCRKBA – Bloomberg “Half Right”

January 4, 2013 by

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on the Jimmy Fallon Show and was complaining that the media doesn’t do a good job of reporting “firearm news” other than mass shootings. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms agrees and issued this statement.


BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was “half-right” when he told NBC’s Jimmy Fallon that there is “scant coverage” of other firearms news, because there is virtually no coverage of self-defense uses every day, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.


Bloomberg complained about the lack of attention paid by the press to “people who are killed by guns every day,” according to Yahoo News.


“Press coverage of justifiable gun use in self-defense is almost invisible,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “yet firearms are used in successful self-defense situations hundreds, if not thousands of times every day. It is disingenuous to talk about crime without mentioning the lives saved because an intended victim was armed.


“We know that hundreds of thousands of lives are saved in this country every year because someone had a firearm,” he continued. “In most cases, a shot is never fired, but the display of a gun sends criminals running.”


He noted examples such as the shooting at a Florida internet café last year, and the intervention by an armed citizen at the Clackamas mall in Oregon last month that stopped a gunman.


“Most of the time,” Gottlieb noted, “if they are reported at all, such stories rarely get beyond local media coverage, and quickly vanish from the headlines. It would be a refreshing change to see the press pay more attention when an armed citizen defends himself, his family, his home or total strangers by being in the right place at the right time.


“While Bloomberg would ignore these people,” he observed, “they really are first responders and they sometimes perform acts of remarkable heroism in saving innocent lives. The press only pays attention to tragedies while ignoring triumphs.


“Mayor Bloomberg is famous for telling half a story,” Gottlieb concluded, “and he wants the press to continue as his surrogate in this campaign to demonize firearms and the people who own them. In truth, gun owners are our friends, neighbors, doctors, the people who teach our children, and many others who have sometimes been called upon to use a firearm to save a life, and we out number him.”

Clayton Cramer used to do a great job in publishing media reports of defensive gun use. Unfortunately, he stopped doing this after getting sued by the charlatans at the now-defunct RightHaven, LLC. While I have checked the old Armed Citizen site, it doesn’t seem up-to-date.

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SAF & CCRKBA Propose National Commission On Causes Of Violence

December 19, 2012 by 3 Comments

The Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has proposed a national commission to study the causes of violence. Rather than focus solely on the tools, i.e., guns, they are proposing to find the root cause of why you have people go so far off the rails as in Aurora or Newtown. I think this is a much more valuable approach to the tragedy in Newtown than passing more laws that will never stop a madman but might prevent the good people from defending themselves.


BELLEVUE, WA – Two leading national gun rights organizations are calling
for the creation of a national commission to study the causes of
violence in America, and offer possible preventive measures.

The Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for
the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said that a national dialogue on
violence has already begun in the wake of the Sandy Hook school tragedy,
but that a national commission would be more able to address the
complexity of this dilemma.

“If we don’t identify and get at the root causes of
violence,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb of Bellevue,
Washington, “it won’t matter how many guns you ban, you will still have
violence. There were no guns around when Cain slew Abel, and throughout
recorded history, mankind has engaged in considerable violence. Only in
the past two centuries have firearms played a historic significance.”

“Connecticut already has laws regulating firearms and even
modern semi-automatic rifles,” noted SAF President Joseph Tartaro of
Buffalo, New York. “They did not prevent what happened in Newtown, any
more than Norway’s laws, or Germany’s or Russia’s prevented some of the
recent mass murders in those countries.

“If the public policy debate which is sure to follow,”
Tartaro continued, “focuses solely on gun law solutions and ignores all
the other key questions, we will have done a disservice to the memories
of all the victims of such madness in Connecticut, in Colorado, in
Oregon, or anywhere else.”

Both gun rights leaders noted that violence is a problem in the United States, and “we need to solve it.”

“Gun owners are like anyone else,” Gottlieb observed. “We
have families, we have children and grandchildren. We want to keep them
safe. We walk the same streets as any other citizen, and many gun owners
have decided to protect themselves and their families. Our rights as
gun owners should not be sacrificed in the interest of providing the
illusion that ‘something’ is being done.

“Any meaningful discussion on violence,” Gottlieb added,
“would need to include mental health, violent video games, television
shows and films, media malpractice that sensationalizes violence and the
dangerously false sense of security created by so-called ‘gun-free
zones’.”

“If we have a debate,” Tartaro concluded, “let’s make it a broad and meaningful one.”

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CCRKBA On Media’s Double Standard

December 11, 2012 by 1 Comment

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued a release yesterday severely criticizing the media’s double standard when it comes to the NFL. On the one hand, they go all righteous and pro-gun control when Jovan Belcher kills the mother of his child and then himself. On the other, they barely blink an eye when Dallas Cowboy Josh Brent drives intoxicated and kills a fellow Cowboy teammate.

From the CCRKBA:

NEW NFL DEATH SHOWS MEDIA’S DUAL
STANDARD ABOUT GUNS, SAYS CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – After yet another tragic death involving an NFL player over the weekend, there is the appearance of a double standard in media handling of the case, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“A week ago,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “NBC’s Bob Costas was having fits about a so-called ‘gun culture,’ but what about the culture of big money, flashy cars and alcohol that permeats the NFL? Dallas player Jerry Brown is dead from what appears to be a drunken driving crash involving teammate Josh Brent. Brown is no less dead than Javon Belcher or his girlfriend and Brent faces criminal charges. Costas was alarmed at the number of NFL players with guns, but he’s said virtually nothing about the ones who drink and drive.”

Costas ignited a firestorm last week, showing a lack of knowledge about firearms, current laws and the so-called “gun culture” when he editorialized about the Belcher case and then had to do damage control for several days.

“What Bob Costas doesn’t know about guns,” Gottlieb said, “would probably fill a library. His remarks about violent crime, gun owners and semiautomatic firearms demonstrated why the firearms community distrusts mainstream press because many, if not most, of the talking heads don’t know what they’re talking about.

“According to FBI crime data,” he continued, “the number of homicides involving firearms has declined over the past several years. Last year, out of 12,664 homicides, firearms were used in about 8,500 of those crimes, and handguns were used in less than half.

“Compare that to more than 10,000 deaths attributed annually to drunk driving,” Gottlieb said, “yet where is the great discussion about that after Brown’s death?

“Last week, Costas asked who ‘needs’ a semiautomatic firearm,” he added. “Well, who needs to drive drunk? NFL players certainly have enough money to pay for a cab ride, don’t they?

“How many drunks are on the road every weekend following tailgate parties at NFL games,” Gottlieb questioned. “What’s more dangerous, a citizen with a firearm or an NFL player with a bar tab?”

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CCRKBA On Chicago Pol’s Arrest At O’Hare

December 6, 2012 by 2 Comments

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms points out the hypocrisy of anti-gun Illinois State Senator Donne Trotter who was arrested while trying to board a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport with a firearm.

CHICAGO ANTI-GUN POL’S ARREST SHOWS TRUE GUN CONTROL HYPOCRISY, SAYS CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – Today’s arrest of Illinois State Sen. Donne Trotter by authorities at O’Hare International Airport for having a gun in his carry-on bag is a revealing look at the hypocrisy of anti-gunners, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Trotter was arrested at a security checkpoint early this morning. A candidate for the 2nd Congressional District seat vacated recently by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Trotter had a .25-caliber Beretta semiautomatic pistol in his bag. The Chicago Tribune said Trotter told police he worked late last night as a security guard and didn’t realize the pistol was in his bag.

“Trotter is a South Side Democrat and he was a leader in the move to ban so-called ‘assault weapons’ during his first term as a state representative,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “A man who favored banning firearms for thousands of his fellow Illinois residents shouldn’t even have a gun, much less be packing one illegally into an airport.”

Trotter has reportedly been charged with one count of attempting to board an airplane with a weapon, which is a Class 4 felony.

“Senator Trotter, by his own action, has demonstrated the monumental hypocrisy of gun control advocates who try to disarm average citizens while reserving the right to bear arms for themselves alone,” Gottlieb observed. “He should not even be serving in the state legislature, much less be running for a seat in Congress, which already has its share of gun prohibition hypocrites.

“Today’s incident underscores just how pathetic the anti-gun philosophy has gotten,” he concluded. “Perhaps now he will realize how other citizens feel when they run afoul of some anti-gun law or regulation. He should apologize to every gun owner in Illinois.”

As SayUncle noted last night, “it’s universally known on the internet that the .25 sucks.”

Thirdpower at Days of Our Trailers notes that while Trotter does hold a FOID card and is licensed to carry as a security guard he doesn’t believe that you should be able to carry. Trotter is also reported to be interested in running for the Congressional seat formerly held by Jesse Jackson, Jr.

So he is your typical anti-gun hypocrite. It’s perfectly OK for him to carry and own a gun since he measures up to his own personal standards but all the rest of you inbred, knuckle-dragging rednecks are too stupid/ignorant to be trusted and might do something like try and carry one onto a plane.

oh wait.

Maybe he is the perfect replacement for JJJ.

About the only thing I might say in defense of the terminally stupid Sen. Trotter is that he did vote to override Gov. Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto of SB 681. It still doesn’t excuse carrying a Beretta .25 ACP.

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CCRKBA Defends Stand-Your-Ground Law At Florida Hearing

November 13, 2012 by

Joe Waldron, Legislative Director for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, testified today at a commission hearing in Florida that was examining their stand-your-ground law. The commission was established by Gov. Rick Scott to make recommendations about the law in response to the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman shooting incident.

From CCRKBA:


BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today defended the legal concept of Stand-Your-Ground, which is the law in 24 states, during a public hearing in Florida, where a movement is underway to change that state’s statute.

CCRKBA Legislative Director Joe Waldron told the committee examining Florida’s law that the state should not change a law that has been working for seven years. Florida Gov. Rick Scott appointed a commission to examine the law earlier this year following public outcry over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

The incident provided a launch pad for attacks on similar self-defense statutes across the country.

“But after that single incident nine months ago,” Waldron observed, “we’re told Florida’s stand-you-ground law is terribly flawed, and should be repealed or at least restricted severely. The law has been in place for seven years. Laws should not be made – or repealed – based on a single, anecdotal incident.”

He noted that in some states, the stand-your-ground concept has been adopted via “black letter law,” that is, by judicial rulings.

“The stand-your-ground concept has been through the courts all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Waldron said. “The legal concept governs federal case law regarding self-defense.

“In all 50 states,” he added, “if you are subjected to a potentially lethal attack or one that poses the risk of serious bodily injury, you have the right of self-defense, up to and including the use of lethal force.”

“Laws that protect millions of citizens should not be changed because of public reaction to a single case,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We are hopeful that Florida lawmakers use common sense and back away from any attempt to change or repeal this statute.”

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CCRKBA Reacts To Preckwinkle’s Partial Retreat On Violence Tax

November 1, 2012 by

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued this statement after the announcement that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was “compromising” on her violence tax. As it stands now, the tax will only apply to firearm and not to ammunition. I like Alan Gottlieb’s comparison of this tax to the poll tax in the Jim Crow South.

BELLEVUE, WA – Wednesday’s partial retreat by Cook
County, Ill., board President Toni Preckwinkle on her proposed “violence
tax” is a good start, but the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and
Bear Arms said the entire idea should be scrapped.

CCRKBA panned
the proposal more than a week ago, when Preckwinkle announced she was
mulling a 5-cent tax on every cartridge and a $25 tax on firearms to help
close a budget gap. Today she backed off on the “bullet tax” but still
wants the tax on firearms adopted.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb
today was delighted with the partial victory, but said a “full retreat
from this proposed gun ownership penalty is necessary.”

“Gun owners
have won a partial victory,” Gottlieb observed, “but Preckwinkle is still
trying to make them shoulder more than their fair share with this tax
proposal. Face it, illegally-armed criminals are not going to pay any tax,
so waging class warfare against legal firearms owners is way off target,
and we brought attention to it.

“Besides,” he continued, “it’s not
gun owners but government that got Cook County into the budget mess. How
does a county government come up short by an estimated $3 billion,
anyway?

“Experienced shooters and hunters know enough to conserve
their ammunition,” Gottlieb said. “Public officials like Preckwinkle
should take a lesson from that when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.
Instead, she wants to just dig deeper in everyone’s pockets, whether they
are gun owners, smokers or gamblers.”

Newspaper reports said the
county budget could run in the red next year because of the costs of
public health clinics, two hospitals and the criminal justice
system.

“What Preckwinkle wants is to penalize gun owners for
exercising a constitutionally-protected civil right,” Gottlieb stated.
“The penalty should be on Preckwinkle and her political allies for
spending the county that far into the red.

“This proposal smacks of
the same social bigotry that produced poll taxes on minority voters in the
South,” he concluded. “Preckwinkle should know you can’t tax the exercise
of a civil right.”

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CCRKBA Says Justice Steven’s Comments Illustrate Importance Of This Election

October 16, 2012 by 2 Comments

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was the speaker at a luncheon sponsored by the Brady Campaign on Monday. In his speech, he said he was astounded that Congress hadn’t taken steps to address “gun violence” (sic).

In reaction and to illustrate the importance of this election for both the Second Amendment and the future direction of the Supreme Court, Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms released this statement:

BELLEVUE, WA – Monday’s high-profile prodding by retired Supreme
Court Justice John Paul Stevens for Congress to do something, and for
presidential candidates to say something, about gun control proves the
importance of who is in the White House and the U.S. Senate to make and
confirm high court nominations, the Citizens Committee for the Right to
Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Reuters reported that the retired justice was the speaker at Monday’s
luncheon hosted by the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Stevens wrote dissenting opinions on both the 2008 Heller ruling and
the 2010 McDonald decision, both of which affirmed that the Second
Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms.

“In both of his dissents,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb,
“Justice Stevens contended that the right to keep and bear arms was
limited to state militia service. It was, and remains, an astonishing
position on a fundamental civil right.

“What Justice Stevens’ speech clearly underscores,” he continued, “is
the critical importance of who is president, not just for the next four
years, but whenever a vacancy occurs on the high court. Imagine if
Justice Stevens’ opinion had prevailed.”

Stevens’ dissent in the Heller case was heavily criticized by the
majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia. The majority ruling
described Stevens’ arguments as “simply wrong,” and at one point – when
addressing Stevens’ history of the Second Amendment – said that he
“flatly misreads the historical record.”

“Stevens’ replacement on the Supreme Court was liberal Elena Kagan,”
Gottlieb noted. “A liberal, anti-gun majority could easily narrow,
rather than expand, the scope of our Second Amendment. That’s why it is,
and always will be, important for gun owners to have a pro-gun-rights
president and pro-gun majority in the Senate, especially on the
Judiciary Committee.”

To see more on Steven’s speech, Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned has video of the event.