BELLEVUE, WA-Democrats thinking about voting to renew and expand the so-called “assault weapons ban” passed in 1994 during the first Clinton Administration should remember how their party lost control of Congress, and more than 50 members, because of that anti-gun rights vote, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) warned today.
“Since 1994, Democrats have been scrambling to show America’s gun owners just how ‘pro-gun’ their party really is by staging photo-ops at canned bird hunts, or by showing up at shooting events,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb. “But they keep getting it wrong by making pronouncements about supporting the Second Amendment right to own guns for hunting.
“The Second Amendment is not, and never has been, about shooting ducks, deer, clay targets or tin cans,” Gottlieb stressed. “It’s about personal defense, homeland security, and resisting tyranny. America’s 80 million gun owners are not about to be patronized and suckered by politicians whose national party still retains gun control as one of its central planks.
“That said, Democrats who vote to extend the Clinton ban on semi-automatic sport utility rifles and magazines that hold more than ten rounds will be dropping any pretense that they support the rights of their constituents to own firearms,” Gottlieb said, “and gun owners will not forget.
“We won’t forget,” he detailed, “that a politician willing to ban one type of firearm is likely willing to ban another type, perhaps because he doesn’t like its looks. We won’t forget that every member of Congress knows, from a study conducted by the Centers for Disease and Control, that gun control laws have not reduced crime. We won’t forget that it has been Democrats, and only Democrats, on Capitol Hill that have been pushing to renew, and expand, this Draconian gun ban. That’s a legacy their party will carry for the foreseeable future, and gun owners will remember this fall how Democrats vote on this issue.
“If the DNC is truly interested in winning back the trust and support of America’s gun owners, the party should turn its back on any attempt to renew the ban on sport utility rifles and their magazines,” Gottlieb said. “They need to remember 1994, because gun owners won’t forget.”
