BELLEVUE, WA –  For literally working “behind enemy lines” to protect the Second Amendment rights of Massachusetts gun owners, the Gun Owners Action League in that state has been recognized by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as its “Affiliate of the Year” for 2026.

“GOAL being in Massachusetts has their work really cut out for them,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and the fact that they—year in and year out—continue to fight a battle that in many cases is next to impossible to win, and don’t lose sight of the cause, is why they really earned this award.”

Accepting the award on behalf of the organization, Executive Director Jim Wallace offered a riveting, and alarming, description of what Massachusetts gun owners are now facing during recent ceremonies at the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference.

“This means a lot to us,” Wallace said. “We are working so hard in Massachusetts. While people throughout the country celebrated Bruen, unfortunately for us it made things exponentially worse. The Massachusetts legislature was so angry they put together a 154-section bill to rewrite the state’s gun laws, released it at 8 o’clock on a Wednesday night, and passed it the next day.

“Since then,” he recounted, “we have had to shift from an advocacy organization in the State House to a mitigation organization literally trying to keep good people out of prison. Since the law has passed, we at the state association have spent half a million dollars doing that.

“We just recently helped a woman traveling through the state legally carrying a loaded handgun,” Wallace stated. “She was arrested, jailed, charged with a felony, and when our attorney went to the prosecutor and said, ‘You know she didn’t break the law,’ you know what their response was? ‘Yeah, we know that so if she pleads to a misdemeanor, we’ll drop the felony.’ That’s what we are facing in Massachusetts.”

CCRKBA is proud of its state affiliates, and GOAL has truly raised the bar several notches this year, in a battle which underscores the hard work of such organizations.

BELLEVUE, WA – Connecticut State Rep. Craig Fishbein has been honored by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as the 2026 Legislator of the Year.

In addition to being a state lawmaker, noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, Fishbein is also a litigator; an attorney who has been part of the team which put together the Connecticut Citizens Defense League’s challenge to the state’s ban on so-called “assault weapons,” which is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I’m very surprised and very happy,” Fishbein said during the awards ceremony at this year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference in Dallas. “I thank you very much for this.”

First elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives during a special election to fill a vacant seat in November 2016, Fishbein was first named Ranking Member of the legislature’s powerful Judiciary Committee for the 2021-2022 session by House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, and reappointed to the role each session, including for the 2025-2027 session, according to his official biography. He has also served as a member of the Wallingford Town Council since January of 2010.

His dual role as a lawmaker and litigator has put Fishbein in “a unique position,” allowing him to bring other lawmakers into the Second Amendment arena, Gottlieb noted.

The case now before the Supreme Court is known as Grant v. Higgins. Oral arguments will be held Wednesday, Dec. 2. This case is consolidated with a case out of Illinois known as Viramontes v. Cook County, which challenges that county’s ban on modern semiautomatic rifles. 

BELLEVUE, WA –  Veteran gun rights warrior and a champion of Second Amendment activism in Illinois, Richard Pearson, was the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

The longtime executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), Pearson is also a member of the CCRKBA Board of Directors. He has been leading the charge in Illinois, and was instrumental in creating an annual legislative activism day which has traditionally brought thousands of Prairie State gun owners to the capitol in Springfield.

“I want to thank everyone for this award,” Pearson said, adding a quip which brought chuckles from the audience, “It’s a lifetime Achievement Award but I wasn’t done yet. Illinois has a lot of battles and we’re in it and you’re in it.”

“Richard has devoted years to the cause of grassroots gun rights activity,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and he richly deserved this recognition, and this award.”

Pearson was right in the middle of the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court victory in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, which nullified the Windy City’s three-decades-old handgun ban. It was a case with paired the ISRA, a CCRKBA state affiliate, with CCRKBA’s sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation.

He has continued battling anti-gun legislation from a state which has become increasingly hostile to the Second Amendment, especially after losing at the Supreme Court and in the lower courts. Illinois was the last holdout state to grudgingly adopt a concealed carry statute, and Pearson was on the front lines of that battle, as well.