BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Second Amendment Foundation have joined a broad coalition of organizations in support of a national "Gun Appreciation Day" on Saturday, Jan. 19. The Gun Appreciation Day website is at gunappreciationday.com.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said the movement is in response to announcements from the Obama White House and Capitol Hill that there will be legislative attempts to impose wide-ranging restrictions on firearms ownership, including bans on modern semiautomatic sporting rifles, handguns and ammunition magazines.

"We need to ban politicians who assault our rights," said Gottlieb, who is also the SAF executive vice president, "not firearms that are used thousands of times a day to protect lives and property from criminal attack."

"The Obama administration has shown that it is more than willing to trample the Constitution to impose its dictates upon the American people," added Gun Appreciation Day chairman Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc. "If the American people don't fight back now, Obama will do the Second Amendment what he has already done to the First with Obamacare – gut it without a moment's thought to our basic constitutional rights."

It is no accident that Jan. 19 was selected for this event. It falls two days before President Obama is sworn in for his second term.

"We want the president and his allies on Capitol Hill to understand their new push will result in a shove back from the people," Gottlieb stated. "Millions of law-abiding firearms owners are not about to be penalized for the unconscionable act of a madman. We will not all be judged by the conduct of a single crazy person.

"Our intent is to telegraph a message to Congress and state legislatures around the country that trampling our rights is not an acceptable solution to violent crimes committed by people who don't care about laws, much less the lives of the people they harm," he said.

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.

SOURCE Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms