Category: Gun Control

SAF: Garland Nomination Should Be Rejected


BELLEVUE, WA – The founder of the Second Amendment Foundation today said that the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama should be rejected.

SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, reacting to this morning’s announcement, was blunt: “This is not a good nomination and Judge Garland should not be confirmed.”

President Obama nominated Garland, who is the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to fill the seat left vacant by the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the landmark 2008 Second Amendment ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. Scalia was considered a giant on the court and one of its finest conservative voices.

On the other hand, “Judge Garland voted to grant an en banc hearing to Heller after the three judge panel struck down the District of Columbia’s gun ban law. The only reason to do so would be to overturn the pro Second Amendment ruling. That was hostile to gun rights.” Read more

Gun Control

Hillary Lies about Gun Lawsuits

NSSF Corrects the Record on Firearms Industry Liability

NEWTOWN, Conn. – The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms industry, issued a statement today to correct the record and refute ongoing misrepresentation of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) by Hillary Clinton.

In a Democratic presidential primary debate in Michigan Sunday, Mrs. Clinton again falsely charged that the firearms industry is totally immune from liability due to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) and that the law should be repealed. Mrs. Clinton has prevaricated about the law on several occasions. To cite one example, at an Oct. 7, 2015 forum in Iowa, Clinton wrongly claimed, “They are the only business in America that is wholly protected from any kind of liability. They can sell a gun to someone they know they shouldn’t, and they won’t be sued.”

Politifact found Mrs. Clinton’s rhetoric about the law to be entirely false. In fact, Congress has passed limitations on liability for other industries, including small aircraft manufacturers, internet service and content providers, and vaccine makers.

The PLCAA was passed by Congress with support from both sides of the aisle in response to dozens of baseless lawsuits filed in the late 1990s orchestrated out of then President Bill Clinton’s White House to put gun companies out of business by seeking to blame them for the actions of criminals who misused firearms. On Sunday, Hillary Clinton described this spurious line of legal reasoning as “promising.” Read more

Firearms, Gun Control

Anti-Gunners Are ‘Dancing In Blood’ Of Kalamazoo Victims

BELLEVUE, WA – The gun prohibition lobby is “dancing in the blood of the Kalamazoo shooting victims to push their agenda of public disarmament,” the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

“Yesterday, President Barack Obama had the gall to suggest that executive actions that he took in January might have prevented this tragedy,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “and this morning in an email fund raising blast, Shannon Watts, founder of the Moms Demand Action group, intimated that their gun control schemes could also prevent such incidents.

“It’s not true,” he bristled, “and they know it!”

Kalamazoo murder suspect Jason Dalton had no criminal or mental health record, and that has been reported by every responsible news agency in the country, Gottlieb observed. But the co-author of “Dancing in Blood, Exposing the Gun Ban Lobby’s Playbook to Destroy Your Rights” said the remarks from Obama and Watts both follow a key strategy outlined by gun control strategists more than three years ago.

In their booklet ‘Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging” anti-gun activists are told to “Always focus on emotional and value-driven arguments” instead of “wonky statistics.” They are advised to tell the public that America has weak gun laws.

“It is bad enough,” Gottlieb stated, “that the gun ban lobby exploits such a crime, but for a sitting president to also press an anti-Second Amendment agenda that will impact tens of millions of his fellow citizens and not accomplish a whit toward truly reducing violent crime is beyond the pale. Read more

Gun Control

CCRKBA Rips New Gun Control Measure In Washington


BELLEVUE, WA – Proponents of a new gun control measure announced Thursday in Seattle are “being disingenuous at best” in their zeal to push so-called “extreme risk protection order” legislation which they admit did not pass muster in the Washington State Legislature, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.”According to the Seattle Times, this initiative will be based on language found in House Bill 1857,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But anti-gunners couldn’t even get this bill out of a Democrat-controlled legislative committee, because it totally violates due process. Read more
Gun Control

SAF Mourns Loss of Justice Scalia

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation is mourning the loss of a giant on the U.S. Supreme Court with the death today of Justice Antonin Scalia, the man who authored the landmark 2008 Heller ruling that recognized the Second Amendment as protective of an individual civil right to keep and bear arms.

“Antonin Scalia was a brilliant legal scholar who not only understood the Constitution, he brought clarity to possibly the most important issue of our time,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “I had the honor and privilege to have met Justice Scalia and found him to be a man of strong ethics and intellect, and great character.

“Justice Scalia was a fierce defender of the Constitution and he adhered to its original meanings,” he continued. “I found him to be a warm, charming and humorous man with great wit who deeply loved this country and had an unshakeable belief in the rule of law.” Read more

Firearms, Gun Control

Appeals Court Remands Decision for ‘Strict Scrutiny’ of Second Amendment

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a federal district court decision that had upheld the 2013 State of Maryland Firearm Safety Act as constitutional under intermediate scrutiny review.

Writing for the three-judge appellate court panel that heard the case, Kolbe v. Maryland, Chief Judge William B. Traxler wrote: “In our view, Maryland law implicates the core protection of the Second Amendment — ‘the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570,635 (2008), and we are compelled by Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), as well as our own precedent in the wake of these decisions to conclude that the burden is substantial and strict scrutiny is the applicable standard or review for Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment claim.” Read more

Gun Control

New legislation would allow concealed carry without a permit in Michigan

Legislation recently introduced by four House Republicans in Michigan would allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons without a government-issued permit.

The bills’ sponsors indicate penalties for unlawful possession of a firearm will remain in effect, and people who are currently not legally allowed to carry firearms will not be allowed to carry a concealed weapon legally either.

Supporters say requiring a special permit forces inefficient spending, and is an inconvenience to gun owners.

Firearms, Gun Control

CCRKBA To Seattle, Chicago: “How Are Those Gun Taxes Working For You?”

BELLEVUE, WA – Following the bloodiest January in Chicago in 16 years, a double homicide Jan. 26 in Seattle’s “Jungle” homeless camp and Wednesday’s shooting on a Metro bus, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is challenging both anti-gun cities to explain how their gun violence taxes have accomplished anything to reduce firearms-related violent crime.

At the same time, CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb also wants the backers of Initiative 594, passed 15 months ago in Washington state as a so-called “universal background check” gun control measure, to explain why their new law has failed to prevent teens and public transit gunmen from committing heinous acts. There have been no arrests or prosecutions under 594 despite claims that it has prevented more than 100 illegal purchases, he noted.

“Chicago’s body count for January was 51 dead and a lot more wounded,” Gottlieb observed. “Seattle is off to a rousing start as well with the double-murder at ‘The Jungle’ under I-5 and yesterday’s bus shooting. And let’s not overlook the other double homicide last month in which the victims were beaten to death, a crime that proves restrictive gun laws don’t stop murders because killers will find other ways to commit mayhem.”

Noting that the teenage suspects in the fatal Seattle shooting couldn’t legally carry or possess handguns, Gottlieb said this incident offers yet more evidence that I-594 was just “one more false promise of gun control.” There was no background check conducted in the acquisition of the guns allegedly carried by the teen suspects, and he noted that a police drug raid Tuesday in Burien turned up a stolen gun, which also wound up in the wrong hands, and “definitely no background check was conducted there,” he added.

Both the gun control initiative and the Seattle gun tax are being challenged in court, and a lawsuit has also been brought against the gun tax in Cook County, Illinois, which encompasses Chicago.

“Anti-gunners in Seattle and Chicago need to acknowledge that their gun control efforts aren’t part of the solution to violence, they’re part of the problem,” Gottlieb said. “They are pushed with lots of promise, but they’re quickly revealed to be all flash and no substance. They penalize honest citizens and don’t impress criminals. They lie, and people still die.” Read more

Gun Control
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