BELLEVUE, WA – His use of an armed bodyguard revealed by NewsMax.com, New York Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer has been exposed as a world class hypocrite, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said today.

“Chuck Schumer has been working overtime for years to deprive honest, law-abiding Americans the means with which to defend themselves from violent crime,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Yet, here’s Schumer unmasked, protected by an armed New York police detective, a luxury not available to average working class Americans. If Schumer is convinced that his fellow Americans don’t need firearms, why does he feel the need for an armed bodyguard?”

Sen. Schumer, Gottlieb observed, “has never met a gun control scheme that he did not fall in love with.” From his days in the House of Representatives, Schumer has repeatedly sponsored or endorsed every restrictive firearms proposal introduced on Capitol Hill. The disclosure that he has used an armed bodyguard while dismissing the concerns of other Americans about crime smacks of a “deplorable double standard,” Gottlieb stated.

“Chuck Schumer has sunk to a new low in hypocrisy.” Gottlieb said, “That just didn’t seem possible after last year, when he claimed in a May 8 press release that he supports the concept of an individual right to bear arms. That was not what he said on April 5, 1995 when he insisted during a House subcommittee hearing that the Second Amendment ‘does not guarantee the mythical individual right to bear arms we will hear argued for today’.

“Of course,” Gottlieb added, “Schumer is a world-class hypocrite. This is the guy who was slapped with one of the biggest fines ever imposed on a member of Congress by the Federal Election Commission. He reportedly had to pay a $130,000 fine and return $120,455 in illegal contributions, money he raised at a time he was endlessly pontificating about campaign finance reform and running against Republican Alphonse D’Amato, whom he called a ‘sleaze’ during the campaign.

“If anybody knows about sleaze,” Gottlieb said, “it would be Schumer. He’s an obvious expert. Whether he’s talking campaign finance reform and taking illegal contributions, or pushing gun control while he’s walking around with an armed guard, Schumer is the dean of the disingenuous.”