WASHINGTON, D.C. – “The Supreme Court’s landmark decision puncturing the Brady Law is a turning point in the struggle for personal protection and public safety,” John Michael Snyder, Public Affairs Director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said here today.
Snyder, designated “a champion of the right to self-defense” by THE WASHINGTON TIMES, was named “dean” of gun lobbyists by both THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE WASHINGTON POST.
For years, Snyder has opposed Brady’s national mandated handgun purchase waiting period as an “interference with the right of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their loved one from violent criminals.”
He says “it undermines the right to self-defense.
“It undercuts the right to life itself.
“It is not an effective crime-fighting tool.
“An annual survey of Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs in the United States shows year after year that the Nation’s command officers do not believe that the waiting period prevents criminals from obtaining handguns. So why have it?
“It makes more sense to proceed with implementation of the national, instantaneous, point-of-purchase criminal records check for handgun purchases.
“Now is the time for a truly positive public policy in support of the right to personal protection and the promotion of genuine public safety.
“Recent studies of FBI crime statistics, such as that conducted by Professor John R. Lott, Jr. of the University of Chicago School of Law, show state laws which permit the carrying of concealed handguns by law-abiding citizens correlate with reductions in violent crime rates.
“Now is the time for enactment of a federal law allowing a citizen who has a permit to carry a concealed handgun in one state to carry that firearm in all states.
“Now is the time for passage of the Personal Safety and Community Protection Act, H. R. 339, by Rep. Clifford Stearns of Florida, and S. 816, by Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho.”
Snyder, Vice President for Public Affairs of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, also is Treasurer of the Second Amendment Foundation and Chairman of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, Inc.