SACRAMENTO, CA (October 6, 2017) — Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) has issued the following statement concerning calls for new bans and regulations on firearms and firearm accessories:

In depraved acts of self-centered posturing, politicians who do not respect our Constitution are leveraging the recent tragedy in Las Vegas to push for more unconstitutional bans and restrictions on common, semi-automatic firearms and their accessories. These important Second Amendment-protected instruments are purchased, possessed, and responsibly used for lawful purposes by millions of Americans across our great nation.

Just as blogs and websites are protected by the First Amendment, and the Fourth Amendment’s shield against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to advanced devices like an iPhone, so too are modern semi-automatic firearms like AR-15s and their appurtenances protected by the Second Amendment.

History shows that gun control is a one-way ratchet, with so-called “compromises” resulting only in more laws that affect law-abiding people and fewer ways to exercise Second Amendment rights. And there is no textual, circumstantial, or emotional exception to the Constitution’s guarantee that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Law-abiding gun owners will not be bullied by killers or politicians, nor will we give up fundamental individual liberties at the shrill cries of Marxist Democrats or unprincipled Republicans, wealthy Hollywood elitists, the alt-left news media, or billionaire-backed Astroturf groups.

All unconstitutional laws are unjust, illegitimate, and offensive to the rule of law—even if they are enacted in response to a very real tragedy. FPC opposes all restrictions on the acquisition, possession, carry, and use of common, semi-automatic firearms, ammunition, and accessories by law-abiding people.

Whatever the conversation our country might wish to have about the evils found in human nature, and whatever questions we as a society might have about how to better address those moral and cultural deficiencies, no legitimate answers will be found in additional emotion-driven gun control laws that undermine our American system of ordered liberty.

FPC calls on House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and every member of Congress to pass important legislation to protect and advance the Second Amendment rights of law abiding people without further obstruction or delay. That is the job they were elected to do.

Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.