“The liberal municipal governments of such cities as New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle, and states including New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Massachusetts should not be receiving taxpayer funds while violating the constitutional rights of those taxpayers,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “It is ironic that all of those places are willing to spend millions of dollars to attack the rights of gun owners, when they should be protecting civil and constitutional rights, including the Second Amendment.”

In a letter to Sessions, Gottlieb stated that local or state laws that infringe upon or impair the Second Amendment rights of citizens have done nothing to reduce violent crime, but they have reduced the ability of honest citizens to defend themselves.

In addition, the Citizens Committee is launching a national petition drive to mobilize grass roots support for withholding Justice Department funds from the offending local and state governments that are thumbing their noses at two U.S. Supreme Court decisions affirming the individual right to keep and bear arms.

“Why should American taxpayers see their hard-earned money used to erode their fundamental rights,” Gottlieb asked. “Those of us on the front lines of this civil rights battle see this as the ultimate abandonment of common sense. When government becomes the enemy of its constituents, it should be penalized, not rewarded.”

Gottlieb noted that anti-gun local governments penalize their citizens in many ways. For example, when Chicago lost a federal lawsuit to the Second Amendment Foundation, the city paid SAF’s legal bills by taking money from police department funds.

“These stubborn anti-gun local governments will spitefully hurt their citizens any way they can,” Gottlieb observed. “The time has come to slap them down, and the best way to get their attention is to turn off the funding spigot.”

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is in negotiations to meet with Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan to discuss the bank’s ongoing support for the gun lobby and gun manufacturers.

If Sloan continues the bank’s arms business, the AFT will dump its popular Wells Fargo mortgage program offered to members.

Other leading companies—including Dick’s Sporting Goods, REI and L.L. Bean— have acted to protect kids and educators in the wake of the Parkland massacre, but Wells Fargo continues to bankroll the NRA and help gun manufacturers such as American Outdoor Brands Corp. (the parent company of Smith & Wesson) and Vista Outdoor borrow hundreds of millions of dollars.

On Friday, the AFT released correspondence between Weingarten and Sloan outlining the union’s concerns about Wells Fargo’s connections with the NRA as well as its intention to stop offering Wells Fargo mortgages if Wells Fargo continues being the NRA banker. The Wells Fargo mortgage program is part of the Union Privilege program and approximately 1,600 AFT members have opted for these mortgages annually. Read more

The initiative, filed by a Portland-based “interfaith religious group” needs 88,000 signatures by July 6 to be placed on the November ballot in Oregon. Under the measure, if legal gun owners don’t turn in, dispose of or register their semi-auto rifles, they would face felony charges.

“The language in this initiative absolutely puts the lie to any and all claims by the gun control crowd that ‘nobody wants to take your guns’,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We’ve known the true intent of the anti-gun movement for decades, and we’ve been criticized as cranks and paranoids by condescending newspaper editorials and liberal pundits for being honest about it. The registration provision is deceptive, because history has demonstrated that registration will eventually allow the government to take those firearms or order their removal, like they did in New York City a few years ago. Read more