Nickels' Proposed Gun Ban Will Be Challenged, SAF, CCRKBA Promise

BELLEVUE, Wash., March 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Once again when faced
with a controversy, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is reviving his plan to ban
legally-carried firearms from city property, and the Second Amendment
Foundation today promises once again to immediately take him to court.

"This time around," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, "Mayor Nickels needs to
raise this issue to distract public attention from the political smell arising
from the snow-plowing investigation. We remind the mayor that his office has
been warned by Attorney General Rob McKenna that neither he, nor the city, has
the authority to enact such a ban under state preemption.

"Mayor Nickels thinks he can enact this ban merely by executive order,"
Gottlieb observed. "He's not even thinking of putting this before the city
council as a proposed ordinance, because he knows it would never pass. Greg
Nickels is the mayor of Seattle, not the emperor of a city-state."

Nickels' plan was revealed by the Seattle Weekly Tuesday morning. A spokesman
for the mayor's office told the newspaper that the ban "is expected to begin
sometime in May." Gottlieb said SAF expects to be joined in a legal action by
other gun rights organizations.

"Mayor Nickels evidently believes he is above the law, and that 'if the mayor
does it, it is not illegal,'" said Joe Waldron, legislative director for the
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. "You might as well
call him 'President Nixon.'"

"At the public hearing on this issue in December," Gottlieb recalled, "people
were literally lining up to be involved in a lawsuit. Nickels and his staff
are trying to portray the opposition as coming from outside the city, but that
argument is specious at best. Whether people just visit the city frequently,
work in Seattle or live there, they have every right to expect Seattle to
comply with state statute.

"If the mayor thinks this will divert attention away from the snow plowing
controversy," Gottlieb said, "he's mistaken. This ploy won't cure that
headache. It will only give him another."

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation's 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 600,000
members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform
the public about the consequences of gun control.

SOURCE Second Amendment Foundation

Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation, +1-425-454-7012