CCRKBA: Newsom Signs “Extremist Anti-Gun Measure”

BELLEVUE, WA – California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signing of extremist gun control measures Tuesday amounts to a giant leap backwards from protecting public safety and the rights of law-abiding citizens, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

“Gavin Newsom continues to blame gun owners for problems he is not addressing as the state’s chief executive,” said CCRKBA Managing Director Andrew Gottlieb. “Instead of cracking down on law-abiding gun owners by signing Senate Bill 2, which restricts lawful concealed carry, and Assembly Bill 2, creating an 11 percent excise tax on firearms and ammunition, he should be focusing his attention on the people committing crimes.”

Gottlieb said both measures are likely to be found unconstitutional, but in the meantime, Golden State residents will be penalized for crimes they didn’t commit. Read more

California Passes Gun & Ammunition Tax

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law imposing an excise tax on guns and ammunition sold in California. Effective next July, the state will add an eleven percent tax on retail sales of “guns, gun parts and ammunition.” The money is earmarked for “gun violence prevention, enhanced school safety programs and victims of gun violence.”

State law-enforcement agencies and current or former officers are exempted.

The state already charges a $37.19 fee for each firearm sale. Newsom also signed two other measures. One revises the state’s concealed-carry laws and details dozens of places where concealed carry will not be permitted, including schools and medical facilities. The third will require that semiautomatic guns sold in the state be equipped with micro stamping technology on cartridges beginning in 2028.

Gun Control’s Jubilation for Biden’s New Federal Office Reeks of Hypocrisy

By Larry Keane

Gun control activists who have been angered by President Joe Biden’s inaction that he hasn’t done more to “combat gun violence” have forced the president’s hand. Their disappointment with the administration has often spilled over into public media reports.

The president is so desperate to generate some kind of excitement that he caved to their demands and during a White House Rose Garden gun control speech announced the creation of a new federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. It’s something one of the president’s key voting constituencies has demanded since he first took office.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who seems to be “failing up” in Washington, D.C., has been tapped to lead the office. She’s been criticized as being mostly ineffective during her time as Veep, most notoriously so for her dismal record while in charge of securing the southern border.

In addition, several longtime gun control groups – including Everytown of Gun Safety – have garnered key leadership positions in the office. The hypocrisy of the gun control movement’s enthusiasm for the new federal office so closely aligned with the White House is not lost.

They were singing a different tune 20 years ago.

The Announcement

President Biden and Vice President Harris were joined by U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and dozens of gun control activists and attendees at the White House for their announcement. Exclusive speech excerpts were unsurprisingly given to a supportive mainstream media ahead of time.

Today, the president remarked, “I created by executive order, I’m determined to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country.” That’s in stark contrast to previous comments the president made, declaring earlier this year, “I have gone the full extent of my executive authority to do, on my own, anything about guns.”

Vice President Harris added, unironically, “President Biden and I believe in the Second Amendment but Read more

NSSF Applauds Sen. Ted Cruz for Addressing Banking Discrimination of Firearm Industry

NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, applauds U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for directly addressing the ongoing and illegal discrimination of the firearm industry by major banks and payment processors. Fox Business reported on this continued discriminatory practice of major banking institutions and payment processors refusing services because officials in those financial sectors politically disagree with Second Amendment rights.

“Discrimination against firearm manufacturers and retailers is not a new phenomenon but it is long past time this practice is ended,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Major banks, and the payment processors they support, benefit from taxpayer dollars to insure they stay afloat, including the multi-trillion-dollar bailout they enjoyed at taxpayer expense. The discriminatory practice of denying banking services to a Constitutionally-protected industry with which they politically disagree is an abuse of those taxpayer funds. American taxpayers should not be forced to fund banks that actively work to erase their rights. The Second Amendment is not for sale.”

Sen. Cruz, in his capacity as Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, recently wrote to Intuit, a payment processor, that reversed their discriminatory policies of denying QuickBooks services to firearm manufacturers and retailers. The change came only after Senate inquiries into the discriminatory practices. Intuit claimed the policy was directed to them by JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, both banks that hold discriminatory policies against the firearm industry and refuse banking services in an effort to starve them of essential financial services.

NSSF supports legislative efforts to halt these discriminatory practices by financial service providers, including the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act (S. 428/H.R. 53), introduced by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.). This vital legislation would end the ability of corporate entities to profit from taxpayer-funded federal contracts while discriminating against a Constitutionally-protected industry at the same time.

NSSF also supports the Fair Access to Banking Act (S. 293/H.R. 2743), introduced by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and U.S. Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.). These bills would require banks to provide access to services, capital and credit based on the objective risk assessment of individual customers, rather than subjective broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers.

SAF Cheers Ruling Overturning California Mag Ban

BELLEVUE, WA — The Second Amendment Foundation is cheering Friday’s 71-page ruling by a federal district court judge striking down, for the second time, California’s ban on so-called “high-capacity magazines,” and suggests this will affect similar bans in other states.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez handed down the 71-page ruling, noting in his decision, “Removable firearm magazines of all sizes are necessary components of semiautomatic firearms. Therefore, magazines come within the text of the constitutional declaration that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Because millions of removable firearm magazines able to hold between 10 and 30 rounds are commonly owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, including self-defense, and because they are reasonably related to service in the militia, the magazines are presumptively within the protection of the Second Amendment. There is no American history or tradition of regulating firearms based on the number of rounds they can shoot, or of regulating the amount of ammunition that can be kept and carried.”

“We are delighted with this ruling,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The decision affects Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s defense against a lawsuit challenging a similar ban in his state, which is also in the Ninth Circuit, as well as bans in other states. Ultimately, we expect this issue will have to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

As explained by Judge Benitez, “Because the State did not succeed in justifying its sweeping ban and dispossession mandate with a relevantly similar historical analogue, California Penal Code § 32310, as amended by Proposition 63, is hereby declared to be unconstitutional in its entirety and shall be enjoined.”

“This is the second time California has tried to defend this ban,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, “and the second time Judge Benitez has ruled against the statute. California clearly does not get the message about the Second Amendment.” Read more

NRA Response to The So-Called White House Office of “Gun Violence Prevention”

NRA-ILA Executive Director Randy Kozuch released the following statement:

“The White House Office of so-called ‘Gun Violence Prevention’ is yet another distraction, crafted to divert America’s and the media’s gaze from the Biden crime wave and their soft-on-crime policies destroying our communities.

Instead of confronting the real challenges and holding accountable the DAs who turn a blind eye to crime, this administration unfairly targets law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that this office is a puppeteering maneuver by the gun control lobby, designed to dismantle our Second Amendment rights.” Read more

CCRKBA Chair ‘Appalled’ Gun Grabbers Will Be On White House Payroll

The announcement that President Joe Biden will launch a White House “Office of Gun Violence Prevention” led by gun control proponents brought a scathing reaction from the head of one of the nation’s top grassroots gun rights organizations.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the 650,000-member Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was quick to respond.

“I am appalled that Joe Biden is putting the gun prohibition lobby on the White House payroll,” Gottlieb said. “I know that many pro-gun rights members of Congress are working on legislation to prohibit funding for this obnoxious scheme.

“I wonder,” he mused, “how much of their time will be spent keeping guns out of Hunter Biden’s hands now that he has been indicted on gun charges?” Read more

SAF Files Reply Brief in Challenge of Delaware Gun, Magazine Ban

BELLEVUE, WA — Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a challenge of Delaware’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines” have filed a reply brief with the U.S. Third District Court of Appeals in a consolidation of cases.

SAF is involved in two of the three cases, known as Graham v. Jennings and Gray v. Jennings. SAF is joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition, DJJAMS LLC and individual citizens Owen Stevens, Christopher Graham, William Taylor, and Gabriel Gray. They are represented by attorneys Bradley P. Lehman at Gellert Scali Busenkell & Brown in Wilmington, Del., and David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and William Bergstrom at Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C.

In their brief, SAF and its fellow plaintiffs tell the court that Delaware’s law banning firearms and ammunition magazines, which are possessed by millions of Americans, is “flagrantly unconstitutional.”

“Under binding Supreme Court precedent, the law-abiding citizens of this country have an absolute right to possess arms that are in common use,” stated SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Arms possessed by millions of citizens easily meet that description.” Read more

CCRKBA Rips Newsom’s “Gun Control” Constitutional Convention Plan

BELLEVUE, WA – Passage by California lawmakers of anti-gun Democrat Gov. Newsom’s call for a constitutional convention to push a 28th Amendment dictating gun control measures is a horrible move which should be rejected by all other states, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says.

Newsom’s proposal, announced earlier in the summer and explained by the Los Angeles Times, would mandate “universal background checks” on all firearm purchases, raise the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21 years, create a “reasonable waiting period” on gun purchases and ban the sale of modern semiautomatic firearms—the so-called “assault weapons” anti-gunners despise—in a package that would essentially destroy the Second Amendment, which has been their goal for decades.

“Gavin Newsom’s proposal would effectively turn the right to keep and bear arms into a government-regulated privilege,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb stressed. “As we just witnessed in New Mexico, an anti-gun-rights governor could use such a constitutional amendment to effectively disarm the citizenry as a ‘public health emergency’ without any recourse of legal challenge. We’re actually very fortunate that New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham attempted such an outrageous infringement on Second Amendment rights, just so the nation could see how extreme she, Newsom and other like-minded politicians would become if they could legally get away with it.

“Newsom and his ilk are pushing this scheme under the guise of ‘gun safety,’ when we all know better,” he continued. “This is a poorly disguised attempt to nullify the right to keep and bear arms and underscores the need for every gun owner in America to tell their state lawmakers to oppose Newsom’s resolution. This is nothing more than an effort to fool the people into surrendering their gun rights, which have been protected for more than two centuries, and recently affirmed and reinforced by three consecutive Supreme Court rulings. Read more

ATF Backs Down on License Revocation for North Dakota Gun Store Who Had Filed Suit

GW: More weaponization of Biden’s henchmen…

Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) are excited to announce that the ATF has backed down from attempting to revoke the FFL license of Morehouse Enterprises in Valley City, North Dakota.

Previously, GOA and GOF had filed a lawsuit in defense of the gun retailer, which does business as Bridge City Ordnance. The company was facing the loss of its license due to minor paperwork errors, which under the new Biden “Zero Tolerance” policy, was grounds for revocation.

Previous ATF policy dictated that warnings and required corrective action were appropriate measures for first time errors, and only after that could license revocation proceedings be initiated if improvement was not demonstrated.

It has become quite obvious to the average individual that the ATF conducted the “random” inspection of Bridge City Ordnance right after the company joined GOA and GOF in a separate lawsuit challenging the ATF’s Ghost Gun Frame and Receiver Rule last summer.

Litigation is ongoing in both cases.

Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, issued the following statement:

“The ATF kicked a hornet’s nest when they thought they could send a message to gun dealers who dared to challenge their illegal actions in court. In response, GOA and GOF stepped in, and we made clear they were about to engage in a losing battle. We are thrilled for Bridge City Ordnance and hope this encourages ATF to revisit their ‘zero tolerance’ policy.”

GOA spokesmen are available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists. For more information, visit GOA’s Press Center.

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