[Mr Phil]

In response to Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement yesterday that the Obama Administration would pursue reinstating the Assault Weapons Ban on semi-auto rifles that expired in 2004, the the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is charging that the president lied during his campaign when he attempted to court gunowners.

“As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama deliberately and repeatedly lied to America’s 90 million gun owners across the country when he insisted that he would not try to take away anyone’s firearms,” a CCRKBA press release charges.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, reacting to yesterday’s remarks by Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, said Obama “knew he was lying to the nation because his own Web site touted his plan to revive the gun ban and make it permanent.”

“We warned America that Obama’s ‘support’ for the Second Amendment was empty rhetoric,” he states in the press release, “and now Holder’s disclosure has confirmed it. Obama was lying, and now gun rights may be dying.”

Several times on the campaign trail, Obama told voters “I’m not going to take your guns away.” He said it at rallies in Duryea, Pennsylvania and in Boise, Idaho. He also told a news conference that “Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear…I think people can take me at my word.”

“Right now,” says Gottlieb, “I wouldn’t take Obama’s word if he said it rains a lot in Seattle. Apparently, law-abiding gun owners have nothing to fear unless they own sport-utility rifles, semiautomatic shotguns, handguns and any other firearm that Obama and his anti-gun attorney general don’t like.

While Obama did attempt to appease gun owner concerns during the campaign in telling them that they had nothing to fear, he did say he would support “common-sense” legislation alluding to the Assault Weapons Ban.