Ever since the horrific attack in Orlando early Sunday morning the lies about guns and gun control have been flying fast and furious (no pun intended). First of all the rifle the monster used to create the carnage at the Pulse Nightclub was not an AR-15, As my buddy Jazz Shaw pointed out
The rifle used by the Islamist terrorist in Orlando was instead a Sig Sauer MCX carbine, a modular, multi-caliber (able to swap to different calibers, including 5.56 NATO, 300 BLK, and 7.62×39) rifle system that sometimes utilizes STANAG magazines common to more than 60 different firearms, but otherwise has no major parts that interface with AR-15s in any way, shape or form.
This of course, will make no difference at all to the anti-gun politimedia, who don’t particularly care about factual accuracy and who likely wouldn’t be able to tell an AR-15 from a toaster oven if their lives depended on it.
The other huge lie is that denying weapons to people on the terrorist watch-list wouldn’t have done anything to prevent the death of 49 innocent people at the Gay nightclub. That’s because the savage killer wasn’t on the terrorist watch list. Beyond that is the fact that the various federal lists are a lousy way of screening people, because so many innocent people are place on the lists, and many monsters such as the Orlando terrorist aren’t on the list.
In July 2014, liberal site Huffington Post explained the 7 ways people could incorrectly be put on the terrorist watch list. That list was based on a report by investigative site, The Intercept which published and reviewed the government’s watch list documents,
the March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance ” which is a 166-page document issued by the National Counterterrorism Center. The report spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place entire “categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watch-lists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted [I suppose they are trying to prevent zombies, vampires, and Democratic Party voters in Chicago from obtaining guns].
To be honest I don’t believe dead people should be able to purchase guns. However I would imagine that there are probably other forces beyond the terror watch list preventing those sales.
The document’s definition of “terrorist” activity includes actions that fall far short of bombing or hijacking. In addition to expected crimes, such as assassination or hostage-taking, the guidelines also define destruction of government property and damaging computers used by financial institutions as activities meriting placement on a list. They also define as terrorism any act that is “dangerous” to property and intended to influence government policy through intimidation.
This combination—a broad definition of what constitutes terrorism and a low threshold for designating someone a terrorist—opens the way to ensnaring innocent people in secret government dragnets. It can also be counterproductive. When resources are devoted to tracking people who are not genuine risks to national security, the actual threats get fewer resources—and might go unnoticed.
“If reasonable suspicion is the only standard you need to label somebody, then it’s a slippery slope we’re sliding down here, because then you can label anybody anything,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent with experience running high-profile terrorism investigations. “Because you appear on a telephone list of somebody doesn’t make you a terrorist. That’s the kind of information that gets put in there.
Think about it for a moment. One could be put on the watch list because someone who knows a terrorists called you. Or if someone writes blog posts against adminstration policies it could be considered as intended to influence government policy through intimidation. It is even possible to be put on the watch list if you simply “piss off” someone at the White House.
By the way just because one is being investigated by the FBI doesn’t get you on the watch-list, so in all probability Hillary Clinton can buy a gun.
Using the watch-list does not prevent a law abiding citizen from being denied their 4th Amendment rights. The person putting a subject on the terrorist watch list doesn’t need any evidence, there is no due process for the person put on the list. In fact one might not even know they are on a watch-list. This proposal being pushed by the Democrats goes against two constitutional amendments.
The Second Amendment:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
And the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
On Tuesday President Obama angrily demanded congress pass further gun control laws, and attacked Donald Trump’s demand he use the term Radical Islamic Terrorism, and Trump’s plan to bar Muslim immigration until we figure out a better way of screening who is coming into the country, saying in part:
“Do Republican officials actually agree with this? Because that’s not the America we want. It doesn’t reflect our Democratic ideals. It will make us less safe.”
It was interesting to see him get angry about possible immigrants into the country, one can only imagine where we’d be if he got just as angry about the terrorists who attack us. I would answer the President with a comment of my own. “Do Democratic Party officials agree with denying American citizens their Second and Fourth Amendment Rights? Because that’s not the America we want. It doesn’t reflect out constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. It will make us less safe and less free.
