BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun Capitol Hill Democrats just couldn’t resist further provoking the nation’s law-abiding gun owners with yesterday’s renewed push to ban ammunition even after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had temporarily stepped back from such a proposal on Tuesday, and it’s time for the public to smack them down hard, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“Even though BATF moved its ammunition ban proposal to the shelf, Democrats started lobbying the Obama administration to push forward with a ban just as we expected,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “New York Congressman Eliot Engel has introduced legislation, and others Capitol Hill want BATF Director B. Todd Jones to “use his ‘existing authority’ to keep ‘dangerous ammunition out of our communities,’ according to a report in The Hill.

“What do the Democrats hope to achieve, other than to keep 90 million gun owners hopping mad,” Gottlieb wondered. “This push merely reinforces the notion that Democrats are the party of gun control hysteria, and that while they claim to support the Second Amendment, they’re determined to erode it every way possible.

“All this does is pour gasoline on a fire at the grassroots level,” he added. “This isn’t about police officer safety, and it’s not about crime control. This is about having a legislative trophy, an ego-stroke designed entirely to provoke and infuriate the tens of thousands of gun owners who sent comments to the BATF over the past couple of weeks, opposing the proposed framework that would ban .223-caliber M855 ammunition, which has been exempt from federal rules on armor piercing ammunition for many years.

“Pushing a ban on ammunition for which there is no documented evidence of criminal misuse, when Congress has far more important issues on its plate, shows how fanatical these people are about destroying the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb said. “Ironically, these same people portray gun owners as extremists, but it is the anti-gun Democrats who are once again inventing a problem where none exist to push an agenda that has no merit.”