BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is “encouraged by the strong pro-gun rights platform” put forth at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

“This is the strongest pro-gun rights platform I’ve ever seen,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, who was in Florida this week.

The platform includes language supporting the “law-abiding citizens’ God-given right of self-defense,” and  national concealed carry reciprocity. It opposes revival of a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and normal capacity ammunition magazines, and it also takes a swipe at the Justice Department over Operation Fast and Furious.

“This is strong stuff that squarely puts the GOP behind, ahead of and alongside every one of this nation’s millions of law-abiding gun owners,” Gottlieb noted. “I was delighted to see such a bold position put forth because it clearly provides a contrast between those who offer lip service to the Second Amendment, and those who live by it.”

The Republican platform also supports gun owner privacy with language supporting “the right to obtain and store ammunition without registration.”

“I think it is important to American gun owners that, even in the wake of the tragedy in Colorado, and the soaring homicide rate in Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago that the GOP platform framers can intelligently separate the acts of criminals from the civil rights of peaceable citizens,” Gottlieb stated. “Others would dredge up cliché-ridden programs that have been demonstrable failures, and that punish law-abiding citizens for the acts of social losers, thugs and lunatics.

“The Republican platform does none of that,” he concluded. “It is clear that this platform language was crafted by people who understand that the rights of law-abiding gun owners should be expanded not eroded. Their platform recognizes gun owners as first-class Americans, not second-rate citizens.”