BELLEVUE, WA – Missouri Gov. Bob Holden should take off his anti-gun blinders and drop his elitist opposition to concealed carry by law-abiding Missouri residents, the head of a major national gun rights organization said today.

“Gov. Holden could take a lesson from fellow Democrats Mark Warner of Virginia and Bill Richardson in New Mexico,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA). “Missouri citizens deserve the same right of self-defense that residents of over 40 other states exercise. Holden seems to be clinging to one of the great Democratic Party failures of the last 40 years, and that is an alarmist attitude toward legally-armed private citizens.”

Gottlieb noted that Gov. Warner has signed legislation expanding Virginia’s preemption statute, to simplify state gun laws and exempt legally-licensed citizens from a hodgepodge of confusing gun regulations. In New Mexico, Gov. Richardson has promised to sign recently-passed legislation that will legalize concealed carry for qualified state residents, making it the 34th state in the nation with a “shall-issue” law.

“Governors Warner and Richardson have recognized that laws restricting only the rights of law-abiding citizens are worthless in fighting crime,” Gottlieb said. “Instead, they understand that legally armed citizens pose a threat to nobody, except perhaps violent thugs. Meanwhile, Gov. Holden stubbornly clings to the anti-self-defense, pro criminal doctrine of his party’s far left fringe.

“Sensible concealed carry laws have been working in dozens of states,” Gottlieb continued. “Michigan is a perfect example, where extremist opponents of common-sense gun laws made the same tired, hysterical predictions about gunfights in taverns and blood on the streets, none of which have come true. It will not come true in Missouri, either. Gov. Holden needs to tune out the hysterics and tune in to the responsible actions taken by his colleagues in Virginia and New Mexico.”