Posted on 06/16/2010 9:43:01 AM PDT by neverdem
"It's no surprise that [Republican Carly] Fiorina is attacking me," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wrote in a recent fundraising pitch, "because she's so out of touch with California voters. ... She supports allowing people on the no-fly terrorist watch list to buy guns."
This is a line I've seen and heard repeatedly in the last month, and one that I expect to hear from many Democratic candidates this fall. At issue in the debate, and in recently proposed legislation: Should the government restrict the gun rights of people whose names appear on a secret list kept by the government?
The Government Accountability Office released new statistics in May, noting that persons on the terror watch list tried to make 1,228 gun purchases between 2004 and 2010, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) that gun dealers use. GAO reports that only 109 of those purchases were blocked, and only because the purchasers were felons, illegal aliens, under indictment, or insane.
That sounds terrible at first blush, and that's making it something of a cudgel for Boxer and others on the Left to use against skeptical Republicans. The Internet is abuzz with headlines like, "NRA, GOP minions defend terrorists' gun rights."
As alarming as it might sound at first blush, there is a small problem with curtailing people's rights just because their names appear on secret lists kept by the government: It's called the U.S. Constitution.
First, it guarantees that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Second, it provides that no one can be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Third, it has always been understood to confer the presumption of innocence for those accused of crimes -- including terrorism and association with terrorists.
Even within that framework, our government already prevents gun purchases by felons (deprived by "due process of law"), fugitives and illegal aliens.
But if terrorists made 1,119 gun purchases over the last six years, then my first reaction is relief. By some miracle, we haven't seen a rash of shootings by Islamic fundamentalists. Only two incidents come to mind, and one is that of Maj. Nidal Hasan, who already had access to firearms in his position as an officer in the U.S. Army.
Then again, perhaps those gun purchasers weren't terrorists at all. I wonder how many of them are named "Rob Johnson." As just a small example of how hundreds of Americans have been wrongfully kept off airlines since 9/11, a 2006 edition of "60 Minutes" featured 12 men with that common name, none of whom were terrorists and all of whom had been mistaken for someone on a government terror watch list.
The Transportation Security Administration says on its Web site that that there are fewer than 400,000 names on the government's consolidated terror watch list, but those names apparently include common ones like Catherine Stevens, David Nelson and Ted Kennedy. And yes, that Ted Kennedy had to meet with the secretary of homeland security to clear his name -- a remedy to which few Americans on the list have access.
What's more, no one on the left should need to be told that even American citizens named Muhammed have rights. If you want to take them away, then work to repeal the Second Amendment. It's a more honest approach than this election year sloganeering about guns and terror watch lists.
David Freddoso is The Examiner's online opinion editor. He can be reached at dfreddoso@dcexaminer.com.
I dunno. There are FReepers who express the belief that the right to revenge supersedes the law, constitution and the 6th commandment.
Sure but not a car
Would he have been sober?
Because Ted Kennedy murdered an innocent young lady 40 years ago, no.
Oh darn, you beat me to it. First in with a car or driving comment.
I didn't realize that being a suspect of the Federal Government meant I had to give up my God given rights. I suppose I also lose the right to freedom of speech? The right to face my accusers? The right to not self-incriminate?
Tell me, Senator Boxer, what God-given rights - guaranteed in the Constitution - do I "get to keep" if the Government suspects me of something and places me on some list?
Gut-level response: he should have been able to mail-order a Thompson SMG if he wanted. COTUS 2A is not to be applied ideologically.
Maybe he could have shot out a tire before the evil car jumped off the bridge...
Do we normally allow dead people to buy things?
“I dunno. There are FReepers who express the belief that the right to revenge supersedes the law, constitution and the 6th commandment.”
Where the hell did that come from?
What dead people? Have been means the past perfect tense, aka pluperfect tense, no?
Ted Kennedy should not have been allowed anywhere near whiskey or sandwiches, never mind guns and the U.S. Senate.
Just as criminals take the option to disregard the law, so too may their victims or potential victims exercise that same choice.
And, until arrested, charged, tried and found guilty, remain legally innocent of any crime until conviction- under the constitution. It may be that one or all of the members of a jury may see that the lay might not apply in those cases where an otherwise law-abiding citizen "takes the law into his own hands." That is sometimes necessary when the law has been abandoned in the gutter by its enforcers and guardians, who then leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves.
The alternative, of course would be for dimunition of constitutional protections to be met with an equal dilution of governmental authorization: eliminate a First Amendent protection for citizens, or that of the Second, or the Sixth that you mentioned, for example, and an equal elimination of all governmental positions under Article I, or Article II, or Article VI, would also be eliminated.
And of course, when we lose our protections from government, so too do the governmental functionaries forfeit their own.
Why did he need a gun, when he had a car?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.