BELLEVUE, WA – While anti-gun politicians exploit the mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York supermarket to demand stricter gun laws, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said such tragedies might be averted or stopped if New York state law allowed more people to exercise their right to carry.
“New York politicians want tougher gun laws in a state that already has some of the toughest laws in the country,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb observed. “Yet those laws did not prevent what happened Saturday, and never will. New York’s current gun control laws make it difficult to impossible for law-abiding citizens of all races to obtain carry permits. Apparently the shooter staked out this particular market, because he knew there would be no resistance to what is a despicable hate crime.
“To suggest stricter anti-gun-rights laws are the answer to such an evil act is absurd,” he continued. “Instead of making it possible and affordable for average citizens to obtain carry permits for personal protection, New York authorities have stubbornly maintained a permit system that reeks of political favoritism, demagoguery and elitism. It is no wonder this system is now facing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that we hope will overturn the current law.
“Every citizen, regardless of ethnicity or economic condition, deserves better than they’ve gotten from lawmakers in Albany for generations,” Gottlieb stated. “The victims in Buffalo had no chance at all. It is deplorable that the only idea from Gov. Kathy Hochul is to ask for even more restrictions on New York gun owners, and to suggest more gun control on a national scale. That’s not a plan, it’s the perpetuation of an already failed strategy disguised as a plan, and anyone with an ounce of common sense knows it.
“Now Joe Biden has rushed to Buffalo to tell people ‘we can keep assault weapons off the street’,” he noted. “The suspect passed a background check and the rifle was purchased legally, but it was altered illegally after the sale. Instead of blaming guns, maybe Biden can explain how all of the warning signs about this suspect were apparently ignored. The time has come for a new, and significantly different strategy.
“In the past,” Gottlieb said, “Biden has advocated bans on semi-auto rifles and 9mm pistols. That’s also not a solution because it attaches blame to guns instead of the people who misuse them. At a time when we need to bring Americans together against these unspeakable crimes, Biden and his fellow Democrats always find a way to divide us over guns. This is a time for sound judgment, not sound bites. It’s too bad anti-gun Democrats have chosen to not be the adults in the room.
“Half of the states have adopted permitless carry to make it possible for citizens like the ones murdered in Buffalo to fight back,” he added. “It never occurs to politicians such as Hochul or Biden that they have been wrong on gun rights all along. But they have been disastrously wrong, and the proof is the police tape around the Tops supermarket in Buffalo.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.
