BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today responded to a memorandum issued by ‘Everytown Law,’ an arm of Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety gun prohibition lobbying group, calling the document “totally biased” and written solely to support the emergency closure of American gun stores, using the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse.
According to the memo, Everytown objects to lawsuits—filed by SAF and other groups—to protect retail firearms stores as “essential businesses” on the grounds that gun rights groups are “seeking…for Second Amendment rights to become super-rights, receiving a level of protection no other constitutional right enjoys.”
“Well I have news for them,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The Second Amendment is a super right. That’s why it’s in our Bill of Rights. It protects all of our other rights.”
The Everytown memo also argues against gun stores being singled out “for special treatment, and be allowed to remain open even in the face of the most severe public-health crisis this country has faced in over 100 years is legally flawed and should be rejected by the courts.”
“The only thing flawed here is Everytown’s memo,” Gottlieb observed. “Constitutional rights are not subject to a public health crisis. Our rights are enshrined in the Constitution to protect them from just this sort of political treachery disguised as legal research. This memo is totally biased and one-sided, and is further proof that they know we are winning this battle.”
For the past two weeks, SAF and other groups have been waging successful legal battles in several states to prevent or reverse gun shop closures, and defend those important local businesses as “essential” during national emergencies, including a pandemic such as the Coronavirus outbreak.
“We’ve been winning,” Gottlieb said, “which means they’re losing. People rushed to gun stores, many for the first time. Everytown wants to stop that by shutting those shops down. Closing gun stores won’t cure the Coronavirus, and they know it. But if Everytown can convince people it’s okay to suspend the Second Amendment during one emergency, they’ll try to erase it entirely the next time we face a crisis. We will not allow that to happen.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
