BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) today accused perennial anti-gunners including Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of “world class hypocrisy” in their snit over disclosures that the National Security Administration (NSA) is checking phone call data, when they have no problem at all snooping into the privacy of American gun owners.
“The hypocrisy here is staggering,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “Feinstein, Schumer, Pelosi and others are having fits about the NSA’s possible invasion of privacy over telephone calls, but they’ve never had such reservations about mining gun trace data from federal law enforcement agencies, or demanding other invasive measures against law-abiding gun owners.
“For years,” he continued, “gun owners have had to submit to federal background checks to buy firearms, and more invasive checks to legally carry handguns for personal protection. To all the people who are now voicing alarm over the NSA revelations, all I can say is ‘Welcome to the party’. Now they know how gun owners feel.”
Gottlieb noted that Schumer and Feinstein, both Democrats, have been outspoken opponents of legislation designed to prevent municipal governments from essentially “mining data” on traces relating to so-called “crime guns” by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That data is still available to law enforcement agencies for bona fide criminal investigations, but the cities want it to bolster junk lawsuits against gun makers and others, even though federal legislation passed last year prohibits such lawsuits.
“Their concern over legal ‘fishing expeditions’ obviously does not extend to law-abiding Americans who own firearms, nor to the possibility that such digging could interfere with on-going criminal investigations,” Gottlieb stated. “Isn’t it ironic that Pelosi, Feinstein and Schumer are righteously indignant about probes that are supposed to be uncovering terrorist threats to our country, but they haven’t the slightest concern about digging into the lives of citizens who are no threat at all, and are guilty only of exercising a constitutional civil right?”