BELLEVUE, WA – Following two significant Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment, and the Court’s announcement it will finally consider the constitutionality of state and local gun bans, American gun owners have a lot to celebrate this July 4th as the nation reaches its milestone 250th anniversary of independence, according to the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

“We live in a nation founded on the concepts of freedom and individual liberty,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights, the guideposts by which we have made our way through history, is the Second Amendment, protecting the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms. This would not have happened without the dedication of our sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, which has been on the front lines of this battle. Both cases which have been granted high court review are SAF cases, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, and we are proud to have been part of those efforts.

“Look at the record,” he observed. “Since the 2022 Bruen ruling, court cases made possible by SAF’s victory in the 2010 McDonald case—with our state affiliate organization, the Illinois State Rifle Association as a co-plaintiff—including those involving the CCRKBA, have invalidated at least 78 restrictive gun control laws and regulations around the country. Now, with the 6-3 ruling in Wolford v. Lopez, the score has risen to 79, and could go as high as 83 as it applies to similar restrictive laws in California, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. Fighting back with history and the Constitution on our side has resulted in a string of losses to the gun prohibition movement.

“Even before that,” Gottlieb recalled, “we were beginning to set the record straight starting with the 2008 Heller ruling. The McDonald ruling, incorporating the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment, opened the flood gates for several successful legal challenges by SAF, CCRKBA and others, to unconstitutional gun control laws across the country

“And now, the Supreme Court’s long-awaited announcement that it will scrutinize bans on modern semiautomatic sport-utility rifles when it convenes in October came as a vindication of our decades-long fight to restore the Second Amendment to its original stature,” he continued. “It is the proverbial icing on the cake, along with the Court’s decision to let the SAF victory in the Third Circuit stand by denying Pennsylvania’s certiorari petition, which tried to deny full gun rights to young adults in the 18- to 20-year age group. 

“We are especially proud of our state affiliate, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL), and its leader, Holly Sullivan, who coincidentally serves on the CCRKBA Board of Directors,” Gottlieb added. “Because CCDL is a plaintiff in the Grant case challenging Connecticut’s rifle ban, it essentially puts the Committee on the playing field. Frankly, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

“For the first time in recent history, we have a Justice Department willing to enforce the Second Amendment, rather than sit on the sidelines as private organizations defend the Constitution,” Gottlieb noted. “It is gratifying at this special time in our nation’s history to have allies so willing to step forward and join us in this great cause. 

“We wish everyone an incredible July Fourth,” he concluded, “as we celebrate America’s 250th birthday. We renew our commitment to protect and defend the Constitution, and especially the Second Amendment. We have come a long way, and we still have farther to go, but with strong allies, we will get this job done.”

BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and her Democrat Assembly allies have retreated from a gun rights battle they are almost certain to lose, delaying their ill-advised ban on carrying modern semiautomatic firearms until 2027 after a Lancaster County judge issued a preliminary injunction against the new law.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms cheered the ruling, but says the law should be thrown out because it clearly violates the Second Amendment.

“Gov. Spanberger and the Democrats in Richmond have only delayed a fight they started by trying to turn a constitutional right into a regulated privilege,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “And then they tried to regulate the privilege out of existence by banning modern semi-auto firearms, and got properly smacked by the court for doing so.

“Instead of delaying the effective date of this law for one year,” Gottlieb observed, “Spanberger and her cronies at the capital need to completely reverse course, scrap this ban and comply with the constitution.

“It should be clear to Democrats and their media cheerleaders that Virginians, by rushing to gun stores to purchase these popular firearms ahead of the July 1 deadline, have no intention of meekly obeying this outrageous gun ban effort,” he continued. “And the declarations from sheriffs and county prosecutors they will not enforce provisions of SB 749, along with lawsuits filed against the law, prove beyond doubt that the governor and her party’s extremists have created a mess that a one-year delay isn’t going to clean up.

“Virginia Democrats can’t buy enough time to wash away this stain of constitutional ineptitude,” Gottlieb declared. “All they’ve really accomplished is to demonstrate just how far they have moved away from the constitution they swore to uphold. Perhaps in the next election, voters in the Old Dominion will send the Democrats packing, which seems to be the only lesson they understand. As for Spanberger, it’s too late to try pretending all over again she is a moderate. She’s got one term, and by 2029, Virginians will probably have concluded that’s enough.”

BELLEVUE, WA – The U.S. Supreme Court’s newest Second Amendment ruling once again shows that proponents of restrictive gun control policies are on the wrong side of history as well as the Constitution, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

“For the fifth time since the landmark Heller decision in 2008, the Court has upheld the individual right to keep and bear arms,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, who added even more context to the importance of the 6-3 ruling in Wolford v. Lopez, striking down Hawaii’s concealed carry restriction for private property open to the public. “Before this newest ruling, Supreme Court decisions have invalidated 78 restrictive gun control laws and policies around the country. Now, the score has risen to 79, and could go as high as 83 as it applies to similar restrictive laws in California, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. That record amounts to a monumental legal smack down.”

Supreme Court decisions restoring the Second Amendment to its rightful place as the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights started with Heller and continued with the 2010 ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago, striking down that city’s handgun ban. In 2022, the Court nullified so-called “may issue” gun permit regulations in New York State Right & Pistol Association v. Bruen. And this year, the Court yet again reinforced the individual rights of gun ownership in United States v. Hemani, striking the federal ban on gun possession by habitual marijuana users, without any evidence they are dangerous. Now the Wolford decision has protected gun rights even more.

“The perennial losers in these cases, the people and organizations which have steadfastly and deliberately misrepresented the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb stated, “include Everytown for Gun Safety, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Democrat attorneys general in several states, and others in the gun prohibition movement. They have consistently been wrong about everything when it comes to gun rights.

“And here’s the good news,” he added. “This is obviously just the beginning as we continue the fight to unravel the web of unconstitutional gun control laws which have been adopted over the past several generations, constantly chipping away at our fundamental right to keep and bear arms. The Court isn’t expanding gun rights, it is fully restoring rights which decades of unconstitutional gun control have eroded. In the process, these court decisions have been proving we’ve been right all along about what the Founders intended.”