BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today the withdrawal of anti-gun lobbyist David Chipman’s nomination to head the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is “a victory for gun rights and a much-deserved defeat for the gun prohibition lobby and Joe Biden.”

“I want to thank every gun owner and concerned voter who contacted their Senators and helped us stop this dangerous nominee from being confirmed,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This is a great grassroots victory for the Second Amendment. Gun rights lobby 1, Biden gun ban lobby zero!”

Immediately following Chipman’s nomination, Gottlieb said it had the smell of political patronage to the Giffords gun control lobbying group. He also accurately portrayed the nomination as a declaration of war on gun owners’ rights.

“We predicted Joe Biden’s pick would ignite a political firestorm, and it did,” Gottlieb recalled. “The president has been so wrong on so many issues, and the Chipman nomination ranks right up there as one of Biden’s monumental failures.

“We’re proud of the grassroots effort to defeat this foolish Biden scheme to put an acknowledged extremist gun ban advocate in charge of ATF,” he continued. “We’re also impressed by Senate Republicans who were steadfast in their resolve to prevent this nomination from moving forward. This is a major defeat for the billionaire elitists who bankroll the gun prohibition movement.

“Four months ago,” Gottlieb summarized, “Joe Biden picked a fight not only with America’s law-abiding gun owners, he picked a fight with a Constitutional right. He lost. We can only hope he will learn a lesson from this and that he leaves the Second Amendment alone.”