Hizzoner pushes a button.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just saw a piece on the Washington Post web site that struck him in a way that compelled (yes, compelled) him to post right away.
The piece is: NY mayor decries “terror gap” in US gun laws.
When your Maximum Leader read the headline he thought to himself, “Self, what is this ‘terror gap’ for US gun laws? Should this gap be closed if it exists.” Then he read the piece and started to get very very angry. To quote the piece:
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told a Senate panel Wednesday that he strongly supports congressional efforts to close a “terror gap” in the nation’s gun laws, which currently allow persons on a federal terrorist watch list to buy guns and explosives legally in the United States.
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in the wake of the latest alleged terrorist plot against his city, Bloomberg (I) pointed to a new Government Accountability Office report showing that individuals on the terrorist watch list were able to buy firearms and explosives from licensed U.S. dealers 1,119 times over the past six years.
…
According to the GAO report released Wednesday, FBI data show that individuals on the government’s terrorist watch list were involved in firearms or explosives background checks 1,228 times from February 2004 through February 2010. Of those transactions, 1,119, or about 91 percent, “were allowed to proceed because no prohibiting information was found — such as felony convictions, illegal immigrant status, or other disqualifying factors,” the GAO’s Eileen R. Larence said in prepared testimony.
…
Bloomberg said a bipartisan coalition of 500 mayors supports legislation that would allow the U.S. attorney general to bar such purchases. He said the group also wants Congress to close another loophole that allows people to buy firearms at gun shows with no background checks at all.
“It’s just common sense to give the FBI authority to keep terror suspects from buying guns and explosives,” he said.
So just to be sure we are getting this right allow your Maximum Leader to summarize. If an individual appears on a terror watch list he or she should be denied the right to purchase a firearm.
This is the same terror watch list that gets 12 year old boys from Long Island added to it for some reason no one can quite explain?
This is the same terror watch list that only seems to harass people getting on airplanes but ultimately doesn’t seem to stop anyone from getting on a flight?
This is a terror watch list made up of “suspects” that haven’t actually broken any laws and are legally residing in or citizens of the United States?
Now just to be clear. Your Maximum Leader has no problem whatsoever with our existing process to strip a person of the right to bear arms. It normally involves a judge’s order in fact. Last time your Maximum Leader checked, it didn’t require a judge’s intervention to get one put onto the terror watch list. (And from what he’s read it might take more than a judge’s order to get your name off the watch list once it’s there.)
If you are illegal, you shouldn’t have a right to bear arms anyway. (That could be a subject for a separate post however.)
So we are all in favor of stripping people of their rights because they are suspected of something? Can we extend this process to other situations? Should murder suspects lose the right to habeas corpus because they are on a police watch list? Should an anti-war protester lose the right to free speech or assembly because they are suspected of wanting to cause mischief at a rally? Where exactly do you want to draw a line?
Your Maximum Leader will tell you where he’d like to draw a line. He’d like to draw a line on the side of suspects not being stripped of any of their rights until they are convicted of something in a court of law.
Then again, your Maximum Leader finds himself agreeing with Skippy on so many items he isn’t sure what to think of the world anymore.
Carry on.
