U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms—sister organization to the Second Amendment Foundation and typically operating in its shadow—is launching an aggressive multi-network television advertising effort focusing on Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee’s H.R. 127, and it could reach millions of people over the next week.
For CCRKBA, it does two things. First, it’s an attention-getting bare-knuckles approach to what Chairman Alan Gottlieb calls an “extremist” piece of legislation. Second, the ad campaign will raise CCRKBA’s profile among grassroots activists at a time when it appears the National Rifle Association may be flailing due to the lawsuit filed last August by New York Attorney General Letitia James that seeks to dissolve the organization, and the bankruptcy filing that is part of a strategy to get NRA out from under New York State incorporation and re-established in friendlier Texas.
Anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety last week launched its own ad aimed squarely at the NRA, and its members, according to the New York Times. Everytown’s ad is blistering. As noted by the NY Times, “The six-figure campaign includes television ads on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, as well as digital ads directed at N.R.A. members and gun owners. Ads will also be shown to viewers in Virginia, where the N.R.A. has its headquarters, and Orlando, Fla.”
“When you pay to join the N.R.A.,” the advertisement says, “you get a sticker — and that’s about it…Today, just 10 percent of what they spend protects things like (target shooting, hunting, and safety training). The rest pays for N.R.A. executives to enjoy this: designer suits from Beverly Hills, luxury trips to Italy, Hungary and the Bahamas, private jets, golden parachutes and lots of lawyers. No wonder the N.R.A. is bankrupt.”
CCRKBA’s pro-rights message will be airing 25 times across the following networks: DirecTV, Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, the Weather Channel, HLN, OANN, the Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel and the Inspiration Channel. That’s a broader spread than Everytown’s advertisement appears to have.
In her lawsuit, James asserts NRA officials have essentially milked the organization. And the scenario became more convoluted recently when NRA Director Phil Journey, a judge in Kansas, “asked a Texas bankruptcy judge to appoint an independent investigator to determine the truth of claims made by New York regulators in a lawsuit,” according to Bloomberg News.
The NY Times story quotes NRA spokeswoman Amy Hunter, who insisted, “N.R.A. members will recognize this for what it is: another transparent and failing attempt by avowed anti-Second Amendment and anti-N.R.A. billionaire Michael Bloomberg to advance President Biden’s anti-gun agenda.”
That said, CCRKBA’s hard-hitting ad could get considerable attention from gun owners at a critical moment. And, H.R. 127 is a target just begging for a verbal bruising.
In a statement announcing the group’s “SAVE2A.US” campaign, Gottlieb calls the bill a “dreadful piece of legislation mandating gun owner licensing and registration, mandatory psychological examinations of gun owners, mandatory gun owner insurance, mandatory minimum prison sentences for gun owners who do not comply, and bans on whole classes of firearms and original capacity magazines.”
It’s as though Jackson Lee threw everything at the wall just to see what might stick.
“Democrats are attempting to implement this legislation,” Gottlieb cautioned, “and could take action within the next few weeks. Once again, Democrats are trying to turn your Second Amendment right into a government-regulated privilege, and we’re alerting gun owners across the country about this alarming new threat to the Bill of Rights.”
Joe Biden had promised to take action on guns on his first day in office. He didn’t do that, laments NY Times opinion columnist Gail Collins, a former member of that newspaper’s editorial board. She authored an Op-Ed Feb. 24 that bristled with dislike for gun rights, and elicited a slew of anti-gun reader comments. Here’s just one exchange, involving a reader identified only as “Enough.”
“My platform for my presidential run,” says “Enough,” “would be ‘I’m coming for your guns. Accept payment (as long as you have a valid receipt) or we’ll take them anyway.”
Collins replied, “Wouldn’t bother me, but you’re basically giving the pitch conservative politicians give the voters — they’re coming for your guns!”
But is that really just a “pitch?” Gun owners and Second Amendment advocates such as Gottlieb don’t think so. And Biden has given no indication he’s anything but heart attack serious about wanting to clamp down on gun ownership. His own scheme has been available online for a year, and it also treats the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as the government-regulated privilege Gottlieb asserts.
“America’s gun owners are facing the most sinister attack on their Second Amendment rights I’ve ever seen,” Gottlieb observed in a news release. “Jackson Lee’s legislation is really just the tip of the iceberg, because with Joe Biden in the White House, Beltway Democrats are determined to destroy the Constitution’s cornerstone Amendment.”
With all of this happening, perhaps it should surprise nobody that the Nebraska lawmakers are currently considering legislation that would “prohibit the Nebraska State Patrol, local sheriffs or the Nebraska National Guard from enforcing any new federal restrictions on gun rights.”
As reported by the Lincoln Journal Star, the “Second Amendment Preservation Act”—sponsored by State Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings—is something of a proactive, albeit probably symbolic in nature—shot across Biden’s bow. The newspaper said only one person testified against LB 188 during a hearing a few days ago. Judy King of the Nebraskans Against Gun Violence tried to label the measure as something from the “Anti-American movement.”
But what could be more “American” than an effort to protect the fundamental right to keep and bear arms?
CCRKBA’s advertisement is precisely about that, and if it raises the consciousness level of grassroots gun owners looking for some guidance at a time when their rights appear to be under relentless attack, it just might be the catalyst for a re-energized gun rights movement.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
The post CCRKBA Warns: ‘Dems Trying to Turn 2A Rights into Regulated Privilege’ appeared first on AmmoLand.com.
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