SCHUMER’S
OWN CRITERIA WOULD KEEP HIM FROM BECOMING US ATTORNEY GENERAL
February
1, 2001
Citizens
Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
12500
N.E. Tenth Place •
Bellevue, WA 98005 • http://www.ccrkba.org
For
Immediate Release:
Contact: Alan Gottlieb (425) 454-4911
NEWS
RELEASE
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- By his
own words, US Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has precluded himself from ever
being able to serve as United States Attorney General, a leading firearms civil
rights activist said today.
“The country is fortunate
that Chuck Schumer has defined the parameters of what it takes to be Attorney
General,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right
to Keep and Bear Arms. “In setting those parameters, Mr. Schumer has
effectively taken himself out of the running.”
Gottlieb cited Schumer’s
opening statements during the confirmation hearing for Attorney General-designee
John Ashcroft. Said Schumer: “The position requires
the utmost in balanced judgment, clarity of thought, sound use of discretion
and cautious decision-making…When you have been such a zealous and
impassioned advocate for so long, how do you just turn it off? This may be an
impossible task.”
Schumer continued his
definition, noting that an Attorney General must be able to “Set his advocacy
to one side and become the balanced decision-maker with an unclouded vision of
the law that this country deserves…” as head of the Justice Department.
New York’s senior senator
also criticized Ashcroft for being “a leading advocate against gun control.”
Responding to Schumer’s
remarks, Gottlieb observed,
“For years, Chuck Schumer
has been this country’s leading congressional advocate for every restrictive
gun law that came along. He’s been zealous. He’s impassioned to the
extreme. Using his own criteria, how could Schumer ever make a fair and
balanced decision on whether to fight unconstitutional infringements on the
individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms?”
Gottlieb expressed his
gratitude to Schumer for literally pronouncing himself unfit to lead the Justice
Department.
“When
Schumer argued that this issue ‘goes beyond ideology,’ he’s absolutely
right,” Gottlieb stated. “Chuck Schumer’s long history of legislative
attacks on private gun ownership goes way beyond ideology. A man with his
kind of anti-gun fanaticism could never sit as Attorney General, where his
personal beliefs would indelibly color his judgment on when, and when not, to
enforce the law.”
With more than 650,000
members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep
and Bear Arms is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a
non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving
firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating
grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout
the United States.
Click
Here to see Chuck Schumer shooting a "assault weapon."
