NEWS RELEASE

Citizens Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA  98005

DC EX-CON REPORT SHOWS STUPIDITY OF DC OFFICIALS ON DC GUN LAW, SAYS CCRKBA

For Immediate Release: July 14, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. – "A news report today that ex-cons are guarding DC public schools demonstrates that DC officials are completely incompetent," John Michael Snyder, Public Affairs Director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), said here today.

"They simply cannot be trusted with the public safety," he added.

"Efforts by Mayor Anthony Williams, Police Chief Charles Ramsey and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton to maintain the asinine DC gun law and prevent law-abiding citizens from getting guns to protect themselves and their families would be ludicrous if they weren't so sad," he continued. "Williams, Ramsey and Norton constitute in effect a triumvirate of tyranny – a tyranny that represses the law-abiding citizenry's right to self-defense – a tyranny of stupidity that refuses to recognize the right of decent, average people to protect themselves and their loved ones from violent, predatory criminals."

In a page one article this morning, The Washington Times reported that, "the Metropolitan Police Department has licensed private security officers in the D.C. public school system despite past arrests on charges of assault, cocaine possession and passing counterfeit money, according to a draft report by the D.C. inspector general."

CCRKBA supports the proposed District of Columbia Personal Protection Act, introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana and in the Senate by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. It would repeal DC's restrictive gun laws, including one that prohibits law-abiding citizens from acquiring and possessing handguns, even in their own homes.

Snyder praised the House vote late last month to prohibit the city from spending funds to enforce a DC gun law provision requiring any firearms now legally kept at home to be unloaded and disassembled or protected by a trigger lock. "That's a great first step," he said. "Hopefully, the Senate will see it as a vehicle through which to promote the entire proposed Act."

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.

-END-