CCRKBA HONORS ISRA’S RICHARD PEARSON WITH LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

BELLEVUE, WA –  Veteran gun rights warrior and a champion of Second Amendment activism in Illinois, Richard Pearson, was the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

The longtime executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), Pearson is also a member of the CCRKBA Board of Directors. He has been leading the charge in Illinois, and was instrumental in creating an annual legislative activism day which has traditionally brought thousands of Prairie State gun owners to the capitol in Springfield.

“I want to thank everyone for this award,” Pearson said, adding a quip which brought chuckles from the audience, “It’s a lifetime Achievement Award but I wasn’t done yet. Illinois has a lot of battles and we’re in it and you’re in it.”

“Richard has devoted years to the cause of grassroots gun rights activity,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and he richly deserved this recognition, and this award.”

Pearson was right in the middle of the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court victory in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, which nullified the Windy City’s three-decades-old handgun ban. It was a case with paired the ISRA, a CCRKBA state affiliate, with CCRKBA’s sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation.

He has continued battling anti-gun legislation from a state which has become increasingly hostile to the Second Amendment, especially after losing at the Supreme Court and in the lower courts. Illinois was the last holdout state to grudgingly adopt a concealed carry statute, and Pearson was on the front lines of that battle, as well.