Posted on 06/16/2016 2:17:54 PM PDT by Kaslin
Man, when Democrats say they’re done worrying about due process, they don’t mess around. Follow the logic here. Republicans argue that we can’t summarily strip people on a terror watch list of their gun rights because there are too many innocents who land on those lists, often due to simple bureaucratic errors like confusing a law-abiding person with a terror suspect whose name is similar. The GOP plan, from John Cornyn, calls for a temporary three-day hold when someone on a list tries to buy a gun while the government goes to court to try to convince a judge that that person should be barred permanently from buying weapons. It’s a compromise designed to keep guns out of the hands of the real bad guys while letting the good guys enjoy their rights without too much delay.
Dianne Feinstein has a counterproposal. How about we do summarily strip people of their gun rights, and instead of merely stripping those who are currently on a watch list, we go ahead and also strip people who were … removed from the list in the recent past? In other words, let’s expand the universe of Americans who can’t legally buy guns with no opportunity for due process to include people who aren’t under suspicion anymore.
Even if you’re off the watch list, you’re never really off the watch list. That’s the Democrats’ version of “compromise” on due process.
The Democratic legislation, sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, would seek to prevent individuals on the governments terror watch list from purchasing guns on the recommendation of the Justice Department alone. Ms. Feinstein unsuccessfully proposed a similar measure last year, after 14 people were killed by an Islamic extremist couple in San Bernardino, Calif.
The legislation she is now proposing goes even further, covering not just people on the watch list at the time of purchase, but anyone who had been on the list in the preceding five years. The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, had been on the list but was removed after an F.B.I. investigation turned up no evidence that he was plotting any crimes.
The idea that the DOJ should be able to take away your gun rights on its own say-so, without proof that you’re dangerous, is offensive but it’s in line with standard surveillance-state politics. If the state has good reason to think you’re a threat, the thinking goes, well, we err on the side of neutralizing the threat even if the evidence doesn’t meet traditional legal standards of proof. (Even Cornyn’s proposal accepts that logic. Why force someone on a list to wait to buy a gun if the government doesn’t have probable cause to arrest them for a crime?) Feinstein’s going a step further by arguing that we should err on the side of neutralizing the threat even if the state doesn’t have reason to think you’re a threat. I’d call it the “off-chance” theory of counterterrorism. If you were on a terror watch list at any point, for any duration, because some government agent somewhere thought there was an off-chance you might be an enemy of the state, that’s reason enough to take away your Second Amendment rights. This is what an elder Democratic stateswoman of the Senate is arguing today. If you wanted proof that the left’s focus on the watch list lately has less to do with stopping actual threats and more to do with acclimating the public to the idea of a huge class of people being stripped of their rights in the name of public safety, here you go.
Quite an opening for the presumptive GOP nominee, if only to consolidate the right behind him. I know, I know, he’s said that he agrees with Democrats that people on a watch list shouldn’t be able to buy weapons, but that’s easily finessed by following up and stressing that he prefers Cornyn’s plan to provide due process. He could also argue, correctly, that the watch-list debate underlines how important the Scalia vacancy on the Supreme Court is. There’s every reason to think a five-member liberal majority would rubber-stamp garbage gun-grabbing bills like Feinstein’s. If you want to prevent that, vote Trump. Instead he’ll probably spend the day blathering about his Muslim ban, which no one outside of his core base on the right seems to like, or telling GOP leaders to “be quiet” or whatever. A more disciplined pol would know what to do this. But that’s not what Republicans wanted. Too bad.
Via Ben Shapiro, here’s CBS reporting to its shock and dismay that one of its employees with no criminal record, who passed a background check, was somehow able to buy an AR-15 in less than an hour. What crazy things will law-abiding people be able to purchase expeditiously next?
I hope Trump puts every damned Democrat in the 50 states on a watch list.
How about American Japanese and Germans?
Italians?
ETC
The legislation she is now proposing goes even further, covering not just people on the watch list at the time of purchase, but anyone who had been on the list in the preceding five years. The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, had been on the list but was removed after an F.B.I. investigation turned up no evidence that he was plotting any crimes.
And his due process rights to The Constitution were held inviolable....
Obama keeps forgetting he only has a few more months left in the White house
Has everyone forgotten about Paris where a 100 people were killed a few months ago.. Gun control is not the issue..
He's trying hard to set things up which will keep going after he's gone. Certainly if Hillary wins.
That he's spending the time, indicates that he thinks Trump will lose -- by whatever means necessary.
He knows but is going to create a mess when all is said and done.
And a watch list to watch the watched and used to be watched
..and we’ll still have most of this same, miserable Congress in place, scrrewing up our nation for pay....
Right on Buckeye! That would be the single most effective gun control we could ever do (and it would cure a host of other ills as well!).
With much of the GOPe leadership, including Ryan, working against him, it is going to be really hard for Trump to overcome them all. He is being forced to almost go third party even under the GOP banner. And I share your fear that if despite all the opposition, Trump looks like he will win, the uniparty might do even more to make sure they win. After all, it is the future of Western civilization and untold trillions of dollars at stake.
I could not have said it any better.
The Left never seems to understand that when they trash the law and the Constitution, they weaken them for both the left and the right. And things are moving right.
“And a watch list to watch the watched and used to be watched”
Hard to believe that this doesn’t exist now.
In fact, of course, it DOES exist now - otherwise, how would we know that this recent Jihadi was on one.
The no-fly lists violates the Constitution’s guarantee of due process. Getting on the no-fly list without justification causes a impossible situation for the victim. It is impossible to get off that list.
Let’s not forget that the Constitution only says what the Supreme Court determines it says. And the Supreme Court is about to slide into the netherworld of the globalist/leftist camp.
If Trump loses, only open revolution is left, without that you will simply be a peasant of the global tyranny...your life will be theirs to do whatever they want with.
It wont stop with just one list. Soon there will be a militia list... a tea party list... a christian list... etc...
If CBS sent a producer to buy a gun, why isn’t that a ‘straw purchase’ and why isn’t someone in jail?
Double Secret Probation.
This is great...
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