NEWS RELEASE

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

CCRKBA URGES PRESIDENT TO NOMINATE PRO-GUN RIGHTS ASSOCIATE JUSTICE

For Immediate Release: July 7, 2005

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) is urging President George Bush to appoint an associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court who is "committed to a strict individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment."

In a July 8 letter to President Bush, CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb and Executive Director Joe Waldron said that a nominee to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor should be "committed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution and to the principles and protections of individual rights that have guided us through our first two centuries.

"That strict construction," they wrote, "and the principles and protections of individual rights must include the individual right to keep and bear arms."

The letter coincides with the launch of a CCRKBA fund raising effort to pay for grassroots activities and advertising in several key states, where gun owners will be urged to pressure their senators to fight any attempted filibuster, and confirm a pro-gun justice to the high court.

"With a number of legal cases affecting the rights of gun owners in the lower courts," Gottlieb and Waldron said, "it is almost certain that the Supreme Court will address this issue in the near future. The appointment of an Associate Justice committed to a strict individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment is critical."

Gottlieb noted that there have already been clear signals from anti-gun Senators, because pro-gun nominees to lower courts have been filibustered. He urged Mr. Bush to stand firm against such opposition.

"We are counting on you," Gottlieb and Waldron wrote, "at this critical time in our nation's history to make the right appointment."

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.

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