BELLEVUE, WA – Congressional Democrats “just don’t get it,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today after the House Judiciary Committee moved three gun control bills on party lines, including one to limit magazine capacity to 10 rounds.
“So far,” CCRRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb observed, “all Democrats have accomplished with their gun prohibition agenda is increase gun sales by 15 percent over the last month. This happens every time they introduce or pass new restrictions. They just don’t get it.”
He recalled how previous gun control crusades have accomplished only two things, neither of which Congressional Democrats care to admit. First, campaigns to erode the Second Amendment historically have sent increasing numbers of Americans to gun shops and sporting goods stores to buy firearms, often for the first time. Second, such efforts push people away from the Democratic Party, which no longer represents their values.
“Their attack on Second Amendment rights is really going to increase gun owner voter turnout in the 2020 elections,” Gottlieb predicted. “Remember the elections in 1994, 2000 and 2016. Those elections should serve as reminders that American gun owners are tired of being treated like second-class citizens.
“The more extreme anti-gunners get with their bans and restrictions, the more they telegraph that they have no respect for our Constitutional Second Amendment rights,” he added.
In addition to the proposed limit on magazine capacity, Democrats also support a measure to provide incentives to states that pass so-called “red flag” laws that allow family or law enforcement to petition the court to temporarily disarm someone suspected of being “a threat” to themselves or others. CCRKBA has warned repeatedly about due process concerns.
“Proponents of these measures seem far more interested in confiscating someone’s firearms than they are in getting help for these individuals,” Gottlieb said. “Without due process, you’re essentially considered guilty until you prove yourself innocent, and in the meantime, you’re stripped of an important constitutional right. It doesn’t pass the smell test, and the odor could linger up to the November 2020 election.”