Gun prohibition lobbying groups in Oregon and Washington have launched an effort to push for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” in the respective state legislatures next year, and a Northwest-base gun rights organization says the proposal is all flash and no substance.
Washington Ceasefire and Ceasefire Oregon held a Wednesday press conference in Seattle to announce their campaign. Right now it appears to be aimed at electing anti-gun lawmakers in both states who are more amenable to the gun prohibition agenda.
And prohibition is really what this is all about, according to the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb issued a statement to the press noting that, “at least for the first time both groups are officially out of the closet as gun prohibition organizations.”
“No longer can they hide behind the façade of ‘gun safety’ or even ‘gun control,’” Gottlieb said. “They want to ban an entire class of firearms.”
The gun prohibition groups launched their campaign using a survey of 310 adults in the two states that showed 65 percent of the respondents “favored the ban on assault weapons with a similar majority in favor of a ten bullet maximum on magazine ammunition clips.”
Their lack of firearms knowledge being obvious, these groups reported that the survey has a 5.6 percent margin of error. Gottlieb noted that this is more than double the percentage of rifles of any kind used in homicides, according to data from the FBI.
In any given year, only about two percent of all homicides involve rifles of any type, and the percentage drops even more when narrowed down to just semi-auto sport-utility rifles, which are called “assault rifles” by the anti-gun groups.
One significant revelation of the poll, and one that reinforces the notion that Democrats are the “party of gun control,” is that by more than a 9-to-1 margin (83%-9%), those identified as Democrats favor a rifle ban. They are also more likely to vote for candidates who support banning semi-auto rifles.
Gottlieb accused the groups of using the limited survey “for fear mongering to pursue a gun ban agenda that will not prevent crime or stop domestic terrorists.”
“Millions of law-abiding, honest citizens own modern sporting rifles,” he said, “and they have harmed nobody. The firearms that gun prohibitionists want banned are used for hunting, competition, recreational shooting, home defense, predator control and many other lawful purposes. They are the most popular type of rifle in America today.
“It appears to us that the Ceasefire groups are campaigning against cosmetics and the basic black color of these guns,” he added. “This proposal is about flash rather than substance, and these organizations know it. They’re after trophy legislation, not any meaningful measure to stop criminals or terrorists. It’s a bad idea, penalizing the wrong people, while attempting to create and then exploit public fear.”
