BELLEVUE, WA – Democrats across the country, defeated in key Congressional races Tuesday, have only their party’s leadership and long-term philosophy against gun rights to blame, said leaders of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).
“In the weeks before the election,” observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “Democrats dropped all pretenses in the wake of the Beltway sniper case. While party strategists had urged their candidates to soft-peddle the gun issue, leaders like Senators Chuck Schumer and Patty Murray simply could not contain themselves. The old anti-gun extremism came out, alerting voters across the nation that no matter what Democrats say, or in the case of this year’s campaign don’t say, the party leadership still wants to trample individual gun rights as its response to violent criminals.”
“Once it became obvious that restrictive gun control still captivates Democratic party leaders,” CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron agreed, “gun owners in several regions became the critical element, that key voting bloc in a year when Democrats tried to sound pro-gun, but were, in many cases, treating state and congressional races like referendums on gun control. They lost some significant races because of that.”
Gottlieb and Waldron credit gun owners with Senate victories in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Colorado, Georgia and Missouri, and gubernatorial races in Maryland, Minnesota and New Hampshire.
“Gun owners are clearly in no mood to restore trust in candidates from a party that has, for the past 40 years, steadily and insidiously eroded their civil rights,” Gottlieb observed.
Added Waldron: “Democrats have two long years to repudiate their long-standing position on gun control. Tuesday’s election results should convince them once and for all that gun owners will not support candidates from a party that officially compares law-abiding citizens to criminals.”