BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was "half-right" when he told NBC's Jimmy Fallon that there is "scant coverage" of other firearms news, because there is virtually no coverage of self-defense uses every day, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Bloomberg complained about the lack of attention paid by the press to "people who are killed by guns every day," according to Yahoo News.

"Press coverage of justifiable gun use in self-defense is almost invisible," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, "yet firearms are used in successful self-defense situations hundreds, if not thousands of times every day. It is disingenuous to talk about crime without mentioning the lives saved because an intended victim was armed.

"We know that hundreds of thousands of lives are saved in this country every year because someone had a firearm," he continued. "In most cases, a shot is never fired, but the display of a gun sends criminals running."

He noted examples such as the shooting at a Florida internet cafe last year, and the intervention by an armed citizen at the Clackamas mall in Oregon last month that stopped a gunman.

"Most of the time," Gottlieb noted, "if they are reported at all, such stories rarely get beyond local media coverage, and quickly vanish from the headlines. It would be a refreshing change to see the press pay more attention when an armed citizen defends himself, his family, his home or total strangers by being in the right place at the right time.

"While Bloomberg would ignore these people," he observed, "they really are first responders and they sometimes perform acts of remarkable heroism in saving innocent lives. The press only pays attention to tragedies while ignoring triumphs.

"Mayor Bloomberg is famous for telling half a story," Gottlieb concluded, "and he wants the press to continue as his surrogate in this campaign to demonize firearms and the people who own them. In truth, gun owners are our friends, neighbors, doctors, the people who teach our children, and many others who have sometimes been called upon to use a firearm to save a life, and we out number him."

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