BELLEVUE, Wash., April 25, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms mobile "Guns Save Lives" billboard truck is visiting Pittsburgh, PA during the National Rifle Association's annual convention in that city.

The Guns Save Lives campaign is CCRKBA's response to anti-gun Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, who have sent a moving billboard truck around the country claiming that 34 Americans are "murdered with guns every day." CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb said Bloomberg's campaign "tells less than half of a story, so we're setting the record straight in the Keystone State."

"We're answering Bloomberg's flash with genuine substance," he explained. "We're telling people what Bloomberg isn't telling them. Guns save between 800,000 and 2.5 million lives annually. That's 2,100 to 6,800 people every day who successfully use firearms to defend themselves, or prevent a criminal attack. In the majority of those incidents, no shots are fired, and nobody is injured or killed. In some cases where shots are fired by armed citizens, several lives are saved."

CCRKBA has teamed up with the Second Amendment Foundation, which is producing educational materials on firearms rights, the number of lives saved and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Last year, SAF won a landmark Supreme Court victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago, ending that city's handgun ban.

"While Bloomberg is shooting blanks," Gottlieb explained, "CCRKBA is hitting the bull's eye with information Americans need to protect their civil rights. What better place to do that than in Pittsburgh when tens of thousands of gun rights activists will be in town?"

"Bloomberg's campaign is a smokescreen," he continued. "America needs to look behind the facade to see that his ultimate goal is to convince Congress to implement New York-style gun control laws, ban most semiautomatic firearms, stretch background checks out to between six and nine months, and to put gun shows out of business.

"No mayor, regardless how wealthy he is, should dictate to Congress, the citizens of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia or anywhere else the terms of their civil rights," Gottlieb said. "Michael Bloomberg is spreading hysteria about gun rights. We're spreading the truth."

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