Easy for suspected terrorists to buy guns in the US, report says

[tt11758]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0623/p02s04-usju.html

Nearly 900 people on the FBI’s terror watch list applied for and received a certificate to buy a gun in the United States between 2004 and 2009, according to a Government Accountability Office report released today.

In all, some 90 percent of the people on the watch list who applied passed the required background check, said the report, which was requested by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) of New Jersey.

Gun-control activists say the report demonstrates potentially lethal flaws in gun laws. But gun-rights advocates counter that the terror list is perhaps a greater menace in itself. They see it as ripe for manipulation – allowing the government to tar people as terrorists when it is politically expedient to do so.

The FBI can halt the purchase of a gun by someone with a criminal conviction, so the 900 people in the GAO report "are people who have no criminal conviction, but they're on this mystery list," says Gary Kleck, author of "Stopping Power: Why 70 million Americans own guns."

The GAO document is a follow-up to a 2005 report, which said the FBI cleared gun purchases for 80 percent of terror watch subjects who applied. The current report shows that the percentage has gone up: of 963 background checks, 865 were given the go-ahead – 90 percent.

There's currently no basis to automatically prevent a person from buying a gun simply because they appear on the terrorist watch list, wrote Ellen Larence, the GAO's director of homeland security and justice issues. There must be additional disqualifying factors, such as a felony conviction or illegal immigration status.

Senator Lautenberg calls this "the terror gap," and he wants to fix it with new legislation. His proposed law would give the US attorney general broad discretion to stop a purchase, but would also give affected gun-buyers a chance to appeal the decision. A similar bill failed in Congress last year.

To gun-rights advocates, Lautenberg is essentially trying to undermine the constitutional concept of due process in order to disarm law-abiding Americans.

"This report and the legislation originate from the idea that we can deprive people of basic constitutional protections based on allegations," says Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.

Gun owners have long said that gun restrictions impinge on due process. But the issue has taken on added significance in the current political climate, in which the Obama administration – through the Department of Homeland Security – has expressed concerns about the growth of right-wing extremism. A spate of politically-motivated killings in recent months involving white supremacists and American-born jihadists has only added to this concern.

Now, the report's conclusions will further play on fears in some quarters that the US government wants to clamp down on gun-owning Americans simply for having conservative views.

When you conflate serious terrorist threats with "a right-wing extremist being anyone not driving a Prius with an Obama sticker, then I start having a little bit of a problem," says Jeff Knox, director of the Firearms Coalition in Manassas, Va.

Civil libertarians, too, have concerns about the list. "There's no way to find out if you're on the list or not, and no way to assure that you can see the evidence that got you on the list or got you off," says Chris Calabrese, counsel for the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project in New York.

"There's no reason why it couldn't become a political list," he says.

What ever happened to "due process", or "innocent until proven guilty"?  We are living in scary times, my friends.

[fightingquaker13]

W. and Cheney's legacy. And odds are good it will be a long one because all those abuses of executive power will be oh so tempting, from this president to our last one to keep. One hopes that congress or the courts will end this because I have zero faith in any president doing so.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

W. and Cheney's legacy. And odds are good it will be a long one because all those abuses of executive power will be oh so tempting, from this president to our last one to keep. One hopes that congress or the courts will end this because I have zero faith in any president doing so.
FQ13

HA HA HA HA HA

What planet are you from ?

[fightingquaker13]

HA HA HA HA HA

What planet are you from ?

One where fedralist 51 is still good advice and worth reading. To sunarize, Madison thought (corectly I might add) that the system of checks and balances would work not due to virtue, but due to each branch being jealous of its own perogatives. A lot of the anti-terror excess trampled on both ongress and the courts. Remember the intial tribunals going down i flames? Was that due to tender concern for detainees? Hell no. It was about SCOTUS being pissed at being bypassed and Congres leaping at the chance to set the rules. I'm not betting the farm here mind, but even Pelosi hasn't given BO everything he wants as she's prickly about W taking what she see's as "her" power. As Madison wrote Virtue exists but it is scarce. Therefore one needs must make vice act as virtue through the rule of law.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

One where fedralist 51 is still good advice and worth reading. To sunarize, Madison thought (corectly I might add) that the system of checks and balances would work not due to virtue, but due to each branch being jealous of its own perogatives. A lot of the anti-terror excess trampled on both ongress and the courts. Remember the intial tribunals going down i flames? Was that due to tender concern for detainees? Hell no. It was about SCOTUS being pissed at being bypassed and Congres leaping at the chance to set the rules. I'm not betting the farm here mind, but even Pelosi hasn't given BO everything he wants as she's prickly about W taking what she see's as "her" power. As Madison wrote Virtue exists but it is scarce. Therefore one needs must make vice act as virtue through the rule of law.
FQ13

That IS what kept the Soviet Union stable for so long, neither Army, KGB, or Party could accumulate enough power to depose the other 2, and no 2 trusted each other enough to cooperate against the 3rd.
Unfortunately, here we no longer have 3 branches of Govt. but 6 or more. Each of the 3 is divided by Party, but also into Liberal and Conservative branches,which,   Congress routinely allows the Executive branch to usurp its powers by allowing arbitrary Agency policies to have the force of law as in the current situation with Customs and Knives. When Congress DOES legislate it is not those dipshit vote monger "Statesmen"  They don't know where they are most of the time, legislation is produced by UNELECTED Aides and advisers, and as in the case of the Porkus bill is seldom even read by the members who vote on it, they just read the speeches their Aids hand them.
Be that as it may, the part of your post I found ludicrous was the idea that any of the 3 branches would act against something that infringed on the "Rights of mere citizens", Yes, they will fight tooth and nail to protect their own turf, but the pee ons are on their own.

[Sponsor]

[Pathfinder]

That IS what kept the Soviet Union stable for so long, neither Army, KGB, or Party could accumulate enough power to depose the other 2, and no 2 trusted each other enough to cooperate against the 3rd.
Unfortunately, here we no longer have 3 branches of Govt. but 6 or more. Each of the 3 is divided by Party, but also into Liberal and Conservative branches,which,   Congress routinely allows the Executive branch to usurp its powers by allowing arbitrary Agency policies to have the force of law as in the current situation with Customs and Knives. When Congress DOES legislate it is not those dipshit vote monger "Statesmen"  They don't know where they are most of the time, legislation is produced by UNELECTED Aides and advisers, and as in the case of the Porkus bill is seldom even read by the members who vote on it, they just read the speeches their Aids hand them.
Be that as it may, the part of your post I found ludicrous was the idea that any of the 3 branches would act against something that infringed on the "Rights of mere citizens", Yes, they will fight tooth and nail to protect their own turf, but the pee ons are on their own.

Actually, Tom, I was thinking you were going in a different direction with this. I don't see 6 +/- branches, I see 3 morphing into 1. The judiciary has been co-opted by the left for some time. Now with bho and the dems in majority in Congress, I really see all 3 of them playing with each other to achieve a common goal. The Congressional leaders are all lefties of one sort or another, the pubbies are weak and leaderless, and bho and his minions will lead the fray. The judiciary will back them up.

They may not trust each other, but they will work together for the things they want in common. The rest is a crap shoot.