BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is condemning Seattle Mayor Ed Murray for “monumental hypocrisy” after he declared that the City of Seattle will fight a new Trump administration directive on so-called “sanctuary cities” by going to court to “insure…that the United States Constitution is not violated.”

“When it comes to violating the Constitution, Ed Murray has expert experience,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This is the guy who was publicly embarrassed in 2013 when, as a state senator, he sponsored a gun ban bill that would have allowed warrantless searches of gun owners’ homes by sheriff’s deputies. After that was reported, Murray and his co-sponsors scrambled to remove that language from the bill, but it still failed.”

Gottlieb accused Murray of “trotting out the Constitution only when he can use it for a political prop.”

“Murray would eviscerate the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb said. “He signed a gun violence tax into law that penalizes law-abiding firearms owners and amounts to a poll tax. He has a track record of supporting gun control, including an attempt to ban an entire class of firearms.”

Gottlieb was especially alarmed at Murray’s outspoken defense of “immigrants, regardless of their documentation,” telling a crowd Wednesday that, “These are not criminals, these are our friends, these are our neighbors.”

“Not always, Ed,” Gottlieb challenged. “Jill Marie Sundberg was murdered in Grant County last month and now the authorities have charged three men with the crime. Two other men are being held as material witnesses. All five are in this country illegally. So, tell us, Ed, do you want these fellows as your neighbors?

“Our sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, has successfully defended the gun rights of legal resident aliens in court,” Gottlieb noted. “But that’s not the point. Murray hides behind the constitution to serve his liberal political agenda, but he’s never been worried about stepping on the Second Amendment. If you defend the constitution, you have to defend all of it. If you expect gun owners to obey the gun laws, you need to obey the immigration laws. Only a hypocrite would expect to have it any other way.”