BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today blasted two prominent Pacific Northwest gun prohibition lobbying groups for proposing legislation aimed at penalizing law-abiding gun owners for the crimes of racist cop killers and home-grown terrorists.
“The ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’ proposed Wednesday by Washington Ceasefire and Ceasefire Oregon plays on public fear, and goes after the wrong people,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But at least for the first time both groups are officially out of the closet as gun prohibition organizations. No longer can they hide behind the façade of ‘gun safety’ or even ‘gun control.’ They want to ban an entire class of firearms.”
Both Ceasefire groups released the results of a poll that reportedly only surveyed 310 adults across both Washington and Oregon, claiming that it is a representative sampling of Northwest residents.
“That’s a very limited polling base,” Gottlieb observed, “and they’re using it for fear mongering to pursue a gun ban agenda that will not prevent crime or stop domestic terrorists.”
He also noted that, according to the FBI crime statistics, rifles of any kind are used in only about two percent of all homicides in this country.
“Millions of law-abiding, honest citizens own modern sporting rifles,” Gottlieb said, “and they have harmed nobody. The firearms that gun prohibitionists want banned are used for hunting, competition, recreational shooting, home defense, predator control and many other lawful purposes. They are the most popular type of rifle in America today.
“It appears to us that the Ceasefire groups are campaigning against cosmetics and the basic black color of these guns,” he added. “This proposal is about flash rather than substance, and these organizations know it. They’re after trophy legislation, not any meaningful measure to stop criminals or terrorists. It’s a bad idea, penalizing the wrong people, while attempting to create and then exploit public fear.”