As I recal, part of the problem here is that the authorities may not have let on that some of these folks are suspected of being or associating with terrorists. And once they try to buy a weapon, the cat’s out of the bag.
There was great debate here whether it’s best to not let them legally buy weapons and therfore warn them, or to let them buythe weapons and continue to monitor their movements (I opted for the latter).
In the 1990s, the Clintons determined that the single biggest threat to (their form of) Government was the “vast right wing conspiracy”.
They said that the KLA was not a terrorist group. They pardoned Puerto Rican terrorists. Do not think for a minute that they would not put their political opponents ON the terrorist “watch” list in the absence of any crime or conviction.