Citizens
Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
12500
N.E. Tenth Place •
Bellevue, WA 98005 • www.ccrkba.org
NEWS
RELEASE
CCRKBA
COMMENDS SENATE FOR REJECTING SCHUMER’S $15 MILLION ANTI-GUN CHARADE
For
Immediate Release:
Contact: Alan Gottlieb (425) 454-4911
BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens
Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today congratulated the US Senate
for soundly rejecting a $15 million “gun buy-back” scheme sponsored by
anti-gun Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), noting that there is no evidence this
program has taken a single gun from criminal hands.
The Senate’s 65-33 vote
against Schumer’s proposal was a crushing defeat for the New York senator, who
has campaigned throughout his congressional career to strip American citizens of
their firearms rights. Schumer’s “Buyback America” plan would have
continued a program started two years ago under former President Clinton. The
Bush Administration recently announced it was ending that effort.
"Schumer's attempt to
slip this amendment into a measure designed to finance housing, environment and
veterans' programs simply proves that he is clinging to a philosophy that has
been proven to be not only ineffective, but politically and morally
bankrupt," CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb stated. "His arrogance and
ego backfired, and he created a victory for gun rights."
Buyback America would have
been added to a $113.4 billion funding measure that the Senate ultimately
approved, 94-5. A similar House measure, approved last week, also contained no
money for gun buybacks.
“We’ve never gotten 65
pro-gun votes in the Senate before,” Gottlieb noted. “This proves that
Schumer is so far out of the mainstream that he could not even get many of his
fellow Democrats to support his measure.”
Opponents said the program
was a failure that it had taken money away from more worthy efforts to upgrade
housing or offer assistance to homeless persons.
“The media is spinning this
defeat by insisting that it was ‘not a clear referendum on the Senate’s
sentiment on gun issues’,” Gottlieb observed. “However, I think it clearly
was a referendum on Charlie Schumer and his worn-out rhetoric against gun
ownership. By pushing this wasteful spending proposal, Senator Schumer can no
longer claim to be a moderate on the gun issue, and is now exposed as the
extremist he has always been.”
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.
