BELLEVUE, WA – Following almost a year of silence on the gun control issue, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske recently came back into the spo tlight, supporting yet another piece of gun legislation, while authorities still haven't found the chief's semiautomatic pistol, stolen from his car in 2004.

During a press conference in Seattle earlier this week, Kerlikowske observed, "It's important to me to do whatever I can to keep illegal guns out of our communities."

That remark brought a quick response from Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, based in Bellevue.

"If the chief really wants to make a contribution to the effort to keep guns out of the wrong hands, he shouldn't leave pistols lying around in his city-owned car while he and his wife are shopping," Gottlieb observed. "Somewhere out there is a 9mm Glock pistol that belongs in Kerlikowske's holster or safely stored in his home or office. Wherever it is, you can bet it doesn't belong there.

"Chief Kerlikowske is pretty quick to support gun laws that ratchet down on the rights of law-abiding citizens who are more responsible with their guns than he was with his," Gottlieb stated. "His stolen gun is more of a threat to the public, and possibly his own officers, than the overwhelming majority of handguns, rifles and shotguns owned by Washington citizens from Newport to Neah Bay."

"Anti-gun police administrators haven't had much luck with their own hardware," Gottlieb noted. "Former Detroit Chief Jerry Oliver was detained at an airport for having a loaded gun in his carry-on bag in 2003. Remember when former Madison, Wisconsin Chief Richard Williams stashed his gun in the oven, and then turned the oven on? And let's not forget a couple of other thefts of police guns from cars here in Washington State in the past year.

"Chief Kerlikowske is playing the ‘Do as I Say, Not as I Do' game with the rights of Evergreen State gun owners," Gottlieb said. "Before he pushes any kind of controls on other peoples' guns, he better learn to take better care of his own."

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