BELLEVUE, WA – Demonizing guns and campaigning against firearm civil rights cost Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend the election in Maryland, proving once again that Democrats “still don’t get it,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

“Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, like so many other anti-gun Democrats, demonstrated to voters the depths to which they would sink by exploiting the Beltway sniper shootings in an effort to push their political agenda, and their own candidacies,” Gottlieb stated. “Voters wisely saw through this appalling charade, rejecting Townsend and repudiating the anti-gun rantings of the Baltimore Sun in the process.”

The Sun endorsed Kennedy-Townsend Monday, and editorialized against gun rights, attacking firearms ownership instead of placing blame for Maryland’s deplorable string of killings where it belongs. The newspaper ignored the fact that Kennedy-Townsend and retiring Gov. Parris Glendening had failed to enforce existing gun laws to the point of withholding information from the National Instant Check System.

“The Sun overlooked that hypocrisy, but voters did not,” Gottlieb observed. “Maryland’s Governor-elect, Robert Ehrlich, knows that gun rights are not at fault for the sniper killings. He wisely wants to look at all of the state’s gun laws, and get rid of those that have not served a purpose other than to alienate and punish law-abiding Maryland gun owners.

“Gun rights became the key issue in this race because of Kennedy-Townsend,” Gottlieb continued. “Unlike other Democrats, she never tried to hide her anti-gun sentiments. She made the mistake of waging a war of social prejudice against a segment of voters who fought back. Mr. Ehrlich won the governor’s office, but the real victors in Maryland are truth, justice and the people.”