BELLEVUE, WA â€“ While other gun rights groups reportedly have declined to participate in a â€œnew discussionâ€ about firearms and crime with the Obama administration, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today it would be eager to talk with the White House, especially about the â€œProject Gunrunnerâ€ and â€œFast and Furiousâ€ scandals, where federal agents helped facilitate gun sales to suspected gunrunners.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb acknowledged that his organization has not yet been asked to participate in the â€œnew discussionâ€ outlined by President Barack Obama in an Op-Ed article that appeared in a Tucson newspaper.

â€œHowever,â€ he said, â€œwe would be delighted to sit down with the president and talk about how his administration has supplied guns to criminals.â€

Gottlieb said it seems odd that neither CCRKBA nor its sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), had not been invited to the table despite the presidentâ€™s desire to open a dialogue with gun rights advocates.

â€œAfter all,â€ he observed, â€œit was SAF’s Supreme Court case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, that solidified the Second Amendmentâ€™s protection of an individual civil right that the president now seems to energetically embrace.

â€œIf we were to be invited,â€ Gottlieb insisted, â€œit wonâ€™t be for a photo op. There are serious issues American gun owners want discussed, such as restoration of rights, national concealed carry reciprocity, cracking down on states like New Jersey, New York and California that routinely violate gun ownersâ€™ rights, lifting the administrationâ€™s ban on importation of historic WWII-era rifles, reining in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, especially the Phoenix office and its â€˜Fast and Furiousâ€™ operation, and the nomination of anti-gun rights Andrew Traver to head BATFE. Thatâ€™s like putting an arsonist in charge of the U.S. Forest Service.

Gottlieb said the presidentâ€™s timing for this new approach â€œseems suspiciously like an effort to deflect public attention away from the growing â€œProject Gunrunnerâ€ and â€œFast and Furiousâ€ scandals, now that CBS, Fox News and other major news organizations have started probing the controversial operations.

â€œIf Obama were really serious about opening a dialogue about firearms and crime,â€ he said, â€œit should not have taken him more than two years in the White House before claiming he wants to meet with gun rights advocates.â€