Posted on 05/01/2007 12:47:00 PM PDT by Carry_Okie
BELLEVUE, WA – Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ troubling support of legislation that would allow him and future attorneys general the arbitrary power to block firearms purchases without due process is cause for him to step down as the nation’s highest ranking law enforcement officer, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.
The bill, S. 1237, was introduced last week at the Justice Department’s request by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), one of the most extreme anti-gunners in Congress. Called the “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2007,” this legislation would give the Attorney General discretionary authority to deny the purchase of a firearm or the issuance of a firearm license or permit because of some vague suspicion that an American citizen may be up to no good.
“This bill,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “raises serious concerns about how someone becomes a ‘suspected terrorist.’ Nobody has explained how one gets their name on such a list, and worse, nobody knows how to get one’s name off such a list.
“The process by which someone may appeal the Attorney General’s arbitrary denial seems weak at best,” Gottlieb suggested, “and there is a greater concern. When did we decide as a nation that it is a good idea to give a cabinet member the power to deny someone’s constitutional right simply on suspicion, without a trial or anything approaching due process?
“We’re not surprised that General Gonzales has found an agreeable sponsor in Frank Lautenberg,” Gottlieb observed. “The senator from New Jersey has never seen a restrictive gun control scheme he did not immediately embrace, and S. 1237 is loaded with red flags. It would allow an appointed bureaucrat the authority to suspend or cancel someone’s Second Amendment right without even being charged with a crime.
“Attorney General Gonzales has no business asking for that kind of power over any tenet in the Bill of Rights,” Gottlieb said. “He took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not trample it. Perhaps it is time for him to go.”
Reading your profile made my day today. Thanks.
Okay, I hear ya. You view terrorists as a subset of legal citizens born here, and you are willing to let an unelected bureaucrat decide who is and who ain't a terror-boy.
That makes you an anti-gun scumbag. Please go join these people:
....and get the f*** off a conservative web site, where you clearly do not belong.
...as the only thing verifyable as of now seems to be FL's press release, and a number and title of a bill with no language.
See http://lautenberg.senate.gov/assets/terrorgap/Lautenberg_Bill_4_26_07.pdf. This appears to be the text of the bill that was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary on April 26.
The idea that this is some sort of leftist disinformation is laughable.
I support not allowing known/suspected terrorists to buy guns.
Got it?
Hey Lazamatazy—you need help
Seek help now!
You have the temerity to pretend you are a conservative. Begone, you liberal shill!
Oh take a hike moron.
I have exposed you for wanting to let terrorists buy guns...now that is really insane.
corlorde’s got all four wheels on the ground, that’s obvious to both of us.
You've made absolutely no effort to verify this yourself or produce any evidence to the contrary. If you need more than Lautenberg's word for the fact that this bill originated in the DOJ, from the March 25, 2005 WaPo:
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III is forming a study group to review the law that allowed suspected terrorists to buy guns in the United States after they cleared background checks.
Mueller unveiled his plan to form the Justice Department working group, which will include the FBI, in a letter Wednesday to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). The group will also review the Government Accountability Office report that said more than 40 terrorism suspects were able to buy firearms in the United States last year because background checks showed they had no felony convictions and were not illegal immigrants.
And that was just the first non-Lautanberg source of 29,000 documents from the keywords, "Mueller guns terrorists "working group"."
This has been going on for a LONG time and it wasn't invisible at all. To claim that the President didn't know about it is to believe that he has no clue as to what's going on in the government. So until you can produce a document refuting that this originated and was pushed by the Department of Justice, it stands.
It is clear that you lick the jackboot that kicks you in the head. You are the sort that would round the citizens into the cattle cars, 'for the greater good'.
You and statists like you are my sworn enemy. I cannot wait until the battle is engaged. Then we can meet at long last.
Thank you.
take care,
~Corey
Mueller unveiled his plan to form the Justice Department working group, which will include the FBI, in a letter Wednesday to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). The group will also review the Government Accountability Office report that said more than 40 terrorism suspects were able to buy firearms in the United States last year because background checks showed they had no felony convictions and were not illegal immigrants.Unless one wants the likes of Janet Reno defining "terrorism suspects", it should be clear what an insanely bad idea this law is.
For this alone, Gonzalez may be the worst appointment since John Magaw (Clinton's ATF director and the model for "Dwight Greenwell") was made head of the TSA.
-Eric
We have to support the party line no matter what you TRAITOR!!! /s
So anyone Old Alberto decides is a terrorist is therefore a Terrorist. The minutemen are said to be vigilantes and could be construed as terrorists for all Alberto cares. Think for yourself, don’t let the government do that for you too.
And when a democrat gains power, and those conservative gun owning Christians are deemed terrorists, then what.
The fact that you base your whole argument on some email reveals its superficiality.
Do you follow Second Amendment issues at all? The Second Amendment Foundation has been dedicated to protecting our Constitutional heritage to privately own and possess firearms Since 1974.
In fact, the bill - The “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2007” — would give the attorney general discretionary authority to deny the purchase of firearms (or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses) to “known or suspected terrorists.”
Notice the phrase “known or suspected terrorists”
You'll notice that Lautenberg’s bill defines the term 'terrorism' to include international and domestic terrorism. So I ask you again:
Do you believe that law-abiding U.S. citizens can never be falsely accused and put on a suspected terrorist list by any government official who has an agenda or axe to grind?
What exactly is a 'suspected' terrorist? The article you linked to specifically states that the government's watch list (Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File) contains not only the names of true terrorism suspects and their associates, but their relatives, neighbors or co-workers as well.
So then if my neighbor, unbeknownst to me, is on a terrorist watch list, but is an otherwise friendly fellow and I stop and say hello while outside, do I then qualify as a 'suspected' domestic terrorist if the FBI happens to observe me talking with my neighbor? Then what? As an affected, but innocent law-abiding citizen, I'm afforded an opportunity to challenge a denial to purchase a firearm made by the Attorney General? How much time and money will that take?
Again, do you believe that law-abiding U.S. citizens should be put on a terrorist watch list and possibly be denied the right to purchase a firearm just because they happen to be a neighbor or co-worker of a true terrorism suspect? Bill S. 1237 would give the AG the power to do that. Do you support that?
Alan Gottlieb's concerns are valid: Nobody has explained how one gets their name on such a list, and worse, nobody knows how to get one’s name off such a list. And his concerns are shared by Chris Cox of the NRA:
Excerpts from: http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/NRA_ltr_gonzales.pdf
"… The bill's only nod to due process is that it allows an appeal. Yet even that process is deeply flawed; denied buyers would have to appeal a denial based on "summaries or redacted versions of documents." That may be enough information to tip off a real terrorist about the government's suspicions, and it is not enough information for a wrongfully denied, innocent American citizen seeking to clear his or her name.
In the past, congressional sponsors of similar legislation have claimed it is akin to the government's "no-fly" list, to laws that screen visa applicants, or to laws that allow detention of suspected terrorists. The similarities are not reassuring, as those systems have many errors. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), and then-House Transportation Committee chairman Don Young (R-Alaska), for example, have all been shocked to find themselves on the Transportation Security Administration's "no-fly" list.
And there are critical differences, which are no less troubling. When we block a suspected terrorist from flying on a commercial plane, or from entering the U.S. on a visa, we are not restricting a constitutional right…
As many of out friends in law enforcement have rightly pointed out, the word "suspect" has no legal meaning, particularly when it comes to denying constitutional liberties. The American people have no idea how many individuals are currently on terrorism "watch lists", nor the circumstances under which a person is added to or removed from these lists. Denying rights without legal justification, based on little more than "suspicions" and "secret evidence", is an affront to our Constitution and Bill of Rights…"
You may not think we are at war but in fact it is here.
The fact that we are at war doesn't give people like Sen. Lautenberg a pass to deny constitutional liberties to law-abiding U.S. citizens.
Food for thought:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
--Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755.—The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).
Spot on. Well said.
BTTT
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