We get this piece of silliness from ABC News:
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/667080923561766913/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It notes that individuals on the FBI terrorist watch list can legally purchase firearms. What an outrage! Why should people, arrested and charged with no crime whatsoever be allowed to exercise their Constitutional rights! They're on a watch list!!! Isn't that like, super important?
Well, As noted over at Ace of Spades, Charles C. W. Cooke breaks down how it's not just the NRA that opposes restricting firearm purchases by those on the terrorist watch list, but that infamous right-wing group the ACLU does as well. Why? Well, there's this little thing called the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution that says that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". And one of those liberties that no person shall be deprived of is the right to bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
Because there is no due process involved with getting on a terrorist watch list. One is placed on that list by whim of the FBI, not by a court of law, or a jury of one's peers. If all it took was an unelected official to declare that the NRA was a terrorist group to forbid its membership from purchasing firearms legally, well then you don't actually believe some future administration wouldn't be a bit tempted to do so, do you? Listen to the rhetoric of people like Michael Bloomberg or Gavin Newsome. I guarantee you if they had their way, anyone who owns a firearm would be thrown onto such a watch list.
And this brings me to the last point. Legal points of sale are not what the terrorists have ever previously shown an interest in. For the Paris attack (in a country with strict gun control... sorry "common sense" gun control), they did not get their weapons from the US, or another lax gun control law nation. They got them illegally in Belgium which, if anything, has even stricter ("more sensible") gun control laws than France. Restricting the ability of citizens to purchase weapons legally does not stop those who wish to purchase them illegally.
...well then you don't actually believe some future administration wouldn't be a bit tempted to do so, do you?
ReplyDeleteWell beyond tempted, I always assumed this was what they were planning to do as soon as they could figure out how to obtain the power.
And it's not like innocent people could ever get on these watch lists, right?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Stephen+Hayes+terrorism+watch+list
SPLC decides who goes on that list, especially biker clubs and patriotic militias.
ReplyDeleteHow did a bunch of con artists in a mailing list get that power? Because it's an alliance, not a bunch of random coincidental organizations.
" If all it took was an unelected official to declare that the NRA was a terrorist group to forbid its membership from purchasing firearms legally, well then you don't actually believe some future administration wouldn't be a bit tempted to do so, do you?"
ReplyDeleteNo, not at all, anymore than they might be tempted to inter people they thought might be enemy sympathizers. Use that one to respond to these people, that'll throw them into a brain spaz of cognitive dissonance.
Mike, I know Belgium enacted stricter gun laws in around 2006 after a shooting, but it also has a long tradition of gun manufacture and ownership to the tune of some 900,000 guns in a country of around 11 million (IIRC)- do they really have more restrictive laws than France?
For the Paris attack (in a country with strict gun control... sorry "common sense" gun control), they did not get their weapons from the US, or another lax gun control law nation.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's what Fast and FUrious 2 is going to fix. The stuff people "don't know about" is larger than the stuff people think they know about.
Mike, I know Belgium enacted stricter gun laws in around 2006 after a shooting, but it also has a long tradition of gun manufacture and ownership to the tune of some 900,000 guns in a country of around 11 million (IIRC)- do they really have more restrictive laws than France?
ReplyDeleteThat's what has been reported in the news. And it would not surprise me in the slightest that the vast majority of weapons manufactured by FN are forbidden to its citizens. But according to a 2014 survey I just looked up, there were about 17.8 guns per 100 citizens, whereas France has 31.2 guns per 100 residents, so that lends some credence to the idea that Belgium is stricter.
Hm, yes I see that it does appear to be true, having done a five minute look around also. Looks like 'vive le resistance' is in France still, perhaps, as it appears they are the highest percentage of guns per population in continental Europe after the Swiss and Serbs.
ReplyDelete