BELLEVUE, WA. – When the Violence Policy Center’s Josh Sugarmann admitted that recent shootings at the White House and at the Navistar assembly plant in Melrose Park, IL prove that gun laws don’t work, the concession earned quick agreement from one of the nation’s leading firearms civil rights advocates.
Alan Gottlieb, Founder of the Second Amendment Foundation today said, “I want to congratulate Josh Sugarmann for finally confirming what we’ve been saying all along. Feel-good legislation that only infringes on the rights of law-abiding citizens will never prevent these kinds of shootings.”
In a prepared statement, Sugarmann acknowledged, “America’s gun violence problem will not be solved by licensing and registration, trigger locks, or lamentations over the evil.”
“That’s a major admission from Sugarmann,” Gottlieb stated. “For years, we’ve made that argument, and nobody paid much attention, but now that the country’s leading gun grabber is saying the same thing, maybe the politicians on Capitol Hill and in fifty state legislatures will acknowledge that we’ve been right on this issue.”
Sugarmann’s attempt to spin his concession in favor of a complete ban on handguns and centerfire rifles drew a quick rebuke from Gottlieb, however.
“When Josh Sugarmann argues that the only way to stop criminal misuse of firearms is to tear up the Constitution and trample the firearms rights of millions of law-abiding Americans, it just proves how far out of the mainstream his extremist views really are,” Gottlieb said. “Sugarmann and the Violence Policy Center would ignore the Constitution, and common sense, by imposing a national ban on firearms ownership. He’s not simply wrong, he’s dangerously disillusioned.”
Noting that Illinois gunman William D. Baker was able to get his guns despite a past felony conviction, Gottlieb observed, “This clearly proves gun laws failed to do the job that their authors, and proponents like Sugarmann, promised they would do. It doesn’t mean we need a new law. It means that no law, no matter how tough it is on honest gun owners, will ever stop someone who is determined to commit a violent act. If Illinois, and the shooting in Massachusetts, and other random criminal acts prove anything, it’s that gun laws leave honest citizens at the complete mercy of madmen.
“But that seems to be okay with Josh Sugarmann,” Gottlieb continued, “because it’s better for his campaign of gun-owner hatred to be able to parade a string of corpses than to have honest citizens successfully defending themselves against the kind of lunatics that Sugarmann’s anti-self defense policies encourage.”
The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms.. Current projects include a damage action lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers, an amicus brief in support of the Emerson case holding that the Second Amendment is an individual right and a lawsuit in Cincinnati supporting the right of self-defensive carry.