Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms

U.S. Senate website ^

[Neil E. Wright]

H/T Mike at SipseyStreetIrregulars

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Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms

Wednesday, May 5, 2010
10:00 AM
Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 342

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Witnesses

Panel 1

• The Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg

  
  U.S. Senate

• The Honorable Peter T. King

  
  U.S. House of Representatives

• The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg

  
  Mayor
  City of New York

• The Honorable Raymond W. Kelly

  
  Police Commissioner
  City of New York

Panel 2

• Daniel D. Roberts

  
  Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation
  U.S. Department of Justice

• Eileen R. Larence

  
  Director, Homeland Security and Justice
  U.S. Government Accountability Office

• Sandy Jo MacArthur

  
  Assistant Chief, Office of Administrative Services
  Los Angeles Police Department

• Aaron Titus

  
  Privacy Director
  Liberty Coalition

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Background information:

In February 2004, then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Policy (OLP) to form a working group to review federal firearms and explosives laws*particularly in regard to NICS background checks*to determine whether additional authority should be sought from Congress to prevent firearms and explosives transfers to known and suspected terrorists. In the 111th Congress, Senator Frank Lautenberg and Representative Peter King have reintroduced a bill (S. 1317/H.R. 2159) that would authorize the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected terrorists. This bill reportedly reflects a legislative proposal developed by DOJ.

In general, this bill would amend the Gun Control Act (GCA) to grant the Attorney General the discretionary authority to deny a firearm transfer or state-issued firearms permit to any prospective transferee or permittee through Brady background checks, if the Attorney General determines that the prospective transferee is known (or appropriately suspected) to be or to have been engaged in conduct constituting, preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing material support or resources for terrorism, and has a reasonable belief that the prospective transferee may use the firearm in connection with terrorism (proposed 18 U.S.C. §§ 922A and B). The bill would make similar amendments to the provisions of the GCA governing the processes by which federal firearms dealer licenses are issued and revoked (18 U.S.C. §§ 923(d) and (e)).

The bill would also amend the GCA provision (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)) that enumerates several classes of persons who are prohibited from shipping, transporting, possessing, or receiving a firearm or ammunition, so that it would include persons who were the subject of terrorism-related determinations (described above). The bill would amend the GCA provision (18 U.S.C. § 922(d)) that prohibits any person from transferring a firearm to any prohibited person to include any person who was the subject of a terrorism-related determination as well. In addition, the bill would amend the NICS background check provisions (18 U.S.C. § 922(t)) to reflect that the Attorney General would have this new discretionary authority under the proposed 18 U.S.C. §§ 922A and B.

With regard to NICS denials of firearms transfers or state-issued firearms permits based upon terrorist watch list hits and subsequent determinations by the Attorney General, the bill would amend the Brady Act (P.L. 103-159) to allow a denied prospective transferee to request from the Attorney General the reasons for the denial, but it would also give the Attorney General the authority to withhold those reasons if he determines that such a disclosure would compromise national security. The bill would make a similar amendment to the Brady Act in regard to correction of erroneous information.

Furthermore, the bill would amend the GCA provision that addresses erroneous denials (18 U.S.C. § 925A), to allow any person denied a firearms-related transfer or permit to challenge that determination in U.S. court within 60 days of that determination. This proposed amendment would require the court to sustain the Attorney General’s determination upon a showing by the U.S. Government a preponderance of evidence standard that the determination satisfied the proposed provisions described above (18 U.S.C. §§ 922A and B). The proposed amendment would also allow the court to rely upon summaries or redacted versions of documents underlying those determinations, if those documents contained information that could compromise national security, but it would also allow a court to review the full, undisclosed documents ex parte and in camera at the court’s option or on the motion of the petitioner (denied person). The proposed amendment would also allow the court to determine whether the summaries or redacted versions of the documents were fair and accurate representations of the underlying documents; however, it would not allow the court to overturn the Attorney General’s determination based on the full and un-redacted documents.

[davidosborne]

more gun blaming going on... shocking.. just shocking.. /sarcasm

[davidosborne]

KEY WORDS —— first he said TERRORIST-— then he corrected himself and said SUSPECTED TERRORIST !! -— the devil is in the details.. what defines a SUSPECTED TERRORIST is the key... get to the point..

[davidosborne]

STATS he is quoting is not fair because he goes back to 2004 retroactively.. tell me what the numbers are RECENTLY Mr. Lautenburg...

[Constitution Day]

BTTT

[davidosborne]

Rep. Peter King is up..

[davidosborne]

He just said we are WAR with terrorist.. if that is still true who is going to tell the President.. he seems to think we are just doing routine POLICE work.. and NOT a war.. BIG DIFFERENCE

[davidosborne]

Rep King is confused.. he is only reffering to the TERRORIST list.. not the SUSPECTED TERRORIST LIST like Sen Lautenburg did..

[davidosborne]

Big difference my FRiends..

[davidosborne]

Rep. King is VERY CONFUSED folks !!!

[davidosborne]

Lautenburg will try to SUCK HIM IN to HIS version of “suspected terrorist”.... I hope we getter a stronger PRO-2A witness up

[davidosborne]

bloomberg back up

[davidosborne]

Here come all the SCARE TACTICS.... IN EVERY CASE that he is quotting the perps violated many other laws.. this proposal would have done NOTHING to stop this from happening... if someone uses a baseball bat to kill someone then I guess we need to stop any “suspected terrorist” from purchasing baseball bats..

[davidosborne]

Bloomberg is making an argument that ALL GUNS are obtained from licensed guns dealers.. I wonder how many terrorist will bother walking into a gun store to purchase a firearm... my guess is ZERO..

[stevie_d_64]

All of this hogwash, because they believe “terrorists” are going to legally purchase guns from reputable dealers...

BWAHHAHAAHAHAHHHAHAHAAAA!!!

Well...These people honestly do believe we are stupid...

[NFHale]

“FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!!!!!!!!!!”

You just may get the chance to back that up, brother.

We all may get that chance.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“As it goes, that might be exactly what happens. But someone is going with me. That’s a fact “

I’ll take 20 or more. So will many other patriots.

[stephenjohnbanker]

If we do, it will be our country once again. Believe it.

[NFHale]

I believe in Patton’s Theory of How To Win...

[stephenjohnbanker]

The only game in town!

[NFHale]

They sure DO seem determined to drive over this cliff, don’t they?

Or pushing people to the point of “An Incident” as an excuse to “crack down”.

Insane. Absolutely criminally insane, these folks are...