2k on Terror Watch list buy firearms
The Washington Post reports that more than two thousand people on the Terror Watch list have been able to purchase firearms despite their status;
Between 2004 and 2014, suspected terrorists attempted to purchase guns from American dealers at least 2,233 times. And in 2,043 of those cases — 91 percent of the time — they succeeded. There are about 700,000 people on the watch-list — a point that civil libertarians have made to underscore that many on the list may be family members or acquaintances of people with potential terrorist connections.
[…]
Lawmakers have tried to stop this from happening. Bills have been introduced in Congress to do just that, going as far back as 2007 at the behest of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill to do that earlier this year. The “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015” would prevent several hundred gun purchases by suspected terrorists each year, and it includes provisions to let people challenge a denial if they believe they were placed on the watchlist in error.
According to the Post article, the NRA is at fault for those bills dying in committee, but they don’t mention that the ACLU has a part in that result, too.
Category: Terror War
Yeah, that screeching stuff – er, screening stuff works nicely, doesn’t it?
Hey! DiFi! Stop creating laws, and fund the enforcement of what we already have, you moron!
We want more laws, but no enforcement, because we’re liberal.
We want to live in a police state, but we don’t want the police to do anything, because we’re liberal.
Liberalism, ideas so good they are mandatory and enforced at the point of a US government SWAT team…
If I remember correctly the watchlist has been shown to have a lot of persons with no connections to any terror related connections, including a few high profile embarrassments.
The response from the NRA: Bills S. 34 and H.R. 1506 are aimed primarily at law-abiding American gun owners. Ninety-five percent of watchlisted persons are already prohibited from acquiring firearms in the U.S., because they are not U.S. citizens or legal resident aliens. NICS already checks the relevant portion of the watchlist, and denies firearms to watchlisted persons who are prohibited from possessing firearms. S. 34’s and H.R. 1506’s sponsors could not name a single gun crime committed by a watchlisted person who purchased a firearm after passing a NICS check.
A while back a fellow Squad Leader of mine had a name very similar to someone on the watch list. It was a major pain in the ass for him every time he tried to get on an airplane.
Yeah Lars posted a link yesterday that eventually laid the blame of non-enforcement of some existing gun laws at the feet of the NRA. What was the proof? A quote from one congressman with a (D) after his name. One congressman, one quote = proof. [cough] [bullshit] [cough]
What party is it that has said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”?
I wonder what percent of this terror watch list are the crazy militia types, rather than the crazy jihad types. Just curious.
There is a very large trench between “suspected” and “proven” and I’d have a considerable problem with anyone suspected of something being denied a Constitutional right without some form of due process.
There is also a perfectly reasonable excuse from an investigative standpoint. Imagine Joe Smith shows up and tries to buy a gun. The dealer tells him that he can’t buy the weapon because the BI came back negative. Isn’t Joe now going to know that something is up and the LEOs are looking at him for something?
The SPLC would consider almost all of us suspected terrorists.
Thus I wonder if the Feds aren’t busy trying to blacklist Veterans, NRA Members and anyone else that doesn’t goose-step alongside the leftist agenda?
Scrolling down, and the fucking iPhone thought I was hitting the “report” button. Sorry.
Bobo hit it on the head. We just got briefed on this by an FBI agent last month. The watch list is just that. According to this agent, about 98% of these people turn out to be nothing. They asked us not to inform them if we do a traffic stop and it pops up that they’re on the list. They are not supposed to know if they’re on the list. If they find out, it can blow their investigation.
Being on the list does not preclude you from owning firearms.
This data does more to show the list is inflated and has a lot of innocent people on it than anything else.
Bobo and Taylor are both correct.
This WaPO story is nothing but manufactured outrage intended to drum up support among the naive for additional laws restricting firearms ownership.
Caveat: my statement above assumes that NICS is flagging all attempts by someone on the watch list to procure a firearm and passing that information to Federal LE. That IMO would be a reasonable thing to do, from both the civil rights and common-sense perspectives.
700,000 people are on the watch list? My sides hurt from laughing so hard. 700,000? Cripes. And the NRA killed the Dianne FrankenFeinstein, et al, bill in committee? I had no idea the NRA had a committee seat (chairmanship?) or even a vote in Congress. Imagine that.
Hope you’re sitting down, 2/17 Air Cav. ACLU said it was over a million in 2008 – follow the link Jonn provides above.
ACLU: “About 95% of the people on the list are foreigners, the FBI says, but it’s a source of frequent complaints from U.S. travelers.” Gee, wouldn’t it be easier to ban–oh–Syrians, just for a start? (BTW, the million represent records, not individuals. Evidently, there are many individuals missing an initial or using an alias or something.)
seems to me I recall Teddy Kennedy was on the watchlist… guess they do get it right sometimes
Cripes. Kerry and The One are taking some serious shit, even from their media apologists and propagandists. First, Scrotum Shaver stupidly calls ISIS contained right before the Paris attacks, and then Knucklehead Kerry says that he understands the legitimacy of (Whoops! Did I just say that? I mean, um, rationale)the Charlie Hebdo murders.
Dianne Feinstein said BEFORE the Paris attacks, in response to the Scrotum Shaver’s statement, that ISIS is not contained but expanding, making oBaMa look just as stupid as he actually is. As for Kerry, the WH mouthpiece Josh Earnest tried to deflect by cautioning that we should spend as much time watching what Kerry and oBaMa do, not merely listening to their words. Holy Hannah! No, we shouldn’t listen to Kerry or oBaMa. Their words aren’t important. Not at all. I would agree except for the fact that one is the President of the United States and the other is our nation’s top diplomat! Cripes. I hope we survive this krazy krew.
Kerry also said that the Hebdo (sp?) attack earlier in the year was justified.
Gotta love it when SecState says a terrorist attack is justified. Kinda sets the tone for what’s fixing to happen here at home.
They really don’t get. Either that or they are co-conspirators. I mean Kerry thinks that b/c some drawings of MoMo the Ped were deemed to be sacrilegious by some Muslims that the artists and others were rationally targeted. He understands why they were killed. What he doesn’t understand, he says,is the wanton killing of the kind visited upon Paris Friday. Where has this clown been? The Muslims want to kill non-Muslims. What’s so tough to grasp about that? If the Muslims who want to kill have no non-Muslims to kill, they stay in practice by killing the wrong-flavor Muslims. So, again, what’s so difficult about that–aside from the fact that it is not ‘nuanced’?
Time for the James Taylor brigade !!!