NEWS RELEASE

Second Amendment Foundation

12500 NE Tenth Place  • Bellevue, WA   98005
(425) 454-7012  • FAX (425) 451-3959  • www.saf.org

SAF SAYS D.C. RESIDENTIAL GUN SEARCH AN EXERCISE IN ‘POLICE STATE DEMAGOGUERY’

For Immediate Release:   3/13/2008

BELLEVUE, WA – A plan to conduct “consent searches” for guns in District of Columbia residences is “an outrageous exercise of police state demagoguery,” the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

SAF founder Alan Gottlieb condemned the plan as “a public relations effort designed to influence, through crass dramatics, Tuesday’s scheduled oral arguments on the constitutionality of the District’s handgun ban before the Supreme Court.”

“Launching this effort,” he stated, “on the eve of Supreme Court arguments over the city’s horribly failed handgun ban underscores the Draconian mentality that lies at the root of gun laws like the District handgun ban. Arthur B. Spitzer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C. was right when he told the Washington Post that this ‘sends a message to the public that the police ought to be able to search your house anytime for any reason’.”

Spitzer suggested that citizens will be intimidated into allowing police into their homes without warrant. He said it “cheapens civil liberties and privacy for everyone.” District resident Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association, told the newspaper that he would not allow his home to be searched.

“How dare Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier launch this program within days of oral arguments challenging a 31-year-old extremist gun law that has already been declared unconstitutional by a federal court,” he continued. “District citizens, as well as members of Congress, should be furious.

“Calling this project the ‘Safe Homes Initiative’ is an insult to our intelligence,” Gottlieb stated. “If District residents allow this to happen, no home will be safe from warrantless fishing expeditions by police, because that’s exactly what this thinly-disguised program is really all about. We think Congress should step in immediately and stop this from happening.

“Isn’t it ironic that the District heads to the Supreme Court next week in an effort to destroy one-tenth of the Bill of Rights,” Gottlieb concluded, “while they prepare to launch the kind of police state exercise the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

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