Mobile Mayor's Hypocrisy Showing in Burglary Case, says CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, Wash., Dec. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mobile, Alabama Mayor Sam Jones has some explaining to do in the wake of a highly-publicized incident this week during which he held a burglary suspect at gunpoint, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Jones, a Democrat, is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization that has campaigned for stricter gun control laws that affect average private citizens.

But Jones is no average private citizen. According to published reports, Jones was returning home from an errand, driving his private vehicle. "His bodyguard, who drives the mayor's city vehicle, was not on duty," the Press-Register newspaper reported. And now there are questions about whether the mayor has an Alabama carry permit.

"Here is a municipal mayor who has a bodyguard, and believes it is okay for him to carry a gun, but he belongs to an organization that consistently works to keep everyone else from carrying," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. "If the mayor is legally licensed, why does he belong to a group that has fought to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising their self-defense right?

"If Mayor Jones doesn't have a permit," he continued, "then he is a poster child for the double standards that elites like Mayor Michael Bloomberg believe separates them from the citizens they serve. Either way, Mayor Jones owes it to his constituents to show them his carry permit, and to oppose any further attempts by Mayors Against Illegal Guns to prevent private citizens from exercising their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms.

"It is no surprise that average American citizens are fed up with government officials at all levels," Gottlieb observed. "We're glad that Mayor Jones had the means and the willingness to protect his property, but we are stunned and disappointed that he belongs to an organization whose very essence is to make it virtually impossible for average citizens to do likewise."

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