Tue
Nov 24 2015
11:54 am
Right-wing contortions
By: Somebody

Apparently, people whose names are on terrorist watch lists can legally pass background checks and purchase guns in the United States. Who would have thunk it? As noted in this AP article: "According to a March analysis by the Government Accountability Office, people on the FBI's consolidated Terrorist Watchlist successfully passed the background check required to purchase firearms more than 90 percent of the time, with more than 2,043 approvals between 2004 and 2014." According to the article, the FBI is alerted when this happens, but you know, that's a classic case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

So with all the conservative hysteria over the possibility that a two-year screening process for refugees is not enough, or creating a national Muslim registry, or rounding up the refugees already admitted and sending them back... with all that, you would think that the same folks could get behind simply adding terror watch list names to the disqualifying criteria for gun background checks. You would think that, but you would be wrong.

No, for these folks, (other people's) First Amendment rights are dispensable in the name of security, but Second Amendment rights are sacrosanct, even for suspected terrorists. An NRA spokesperson is quoted in the article saying, "It is appalling that anti-gun politicians are exploiting the Paris terrorist attacks to push their gun-control agenda and distract from President Obama's failed foreign policy." Apparently it's exploitative to talk about reasonable measures with regard to guns, but not exploitative to generate hysteria and suggest draconian measures with regard to refugees, immigrants, and members of minority religious groups. Right. Got it.

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AnonymousPersonLikeThing's picture

Oceania has always been at

Submitted by AnonymousPersonLikeThing (not verified) on Tue, 2015/11/24 - 12:16pm.

Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.

Lil' Wayne LaPierre's picture

Well deflected, Due Process Man!

Submitted by Lil' Wayne LaPierre (not verified) on Tue, 2015/11/24 - 9:20pm.

If you think people on the terrorist watch list should be denied the right to buy firearms, then it seems reasonable that you'd say that when they land on that list, they should be locked up (if they're from here) or deported (if they're not) after a rapid, fair legal process of some kind ( I presume you to assume).

You know, you may be on to a good idea here, although I prefer shedding to sequestering.

All that screening process stuff? People are coming around on that. The governor seems to be, as he should. Of course, nobody would be talking about this stuff at all if Your Favorite Nobel Peace Prize Winner had not made such a huge pot of hell soup out of almost the whole Middle East. Republicans aren't responsible for that. That's mostly on you lefties, and your weirdly disconnected, imperturbably incompetent Maximum Leader Symbol Guy.

rog's picture

Well deflected LaPierre!!!

Submitted by rog (not verified) on Sat, 2015/11/28 - 2:03pm.

"""The transformation of the Middle East that George W. Bush promised has arrived, although in a grotesquely ironic form. From Tunisia to Bahrain, authoritarian regimes are toppling. What’s replacing them isn’t “freedom,” but a new—and often harsher—Islamist rule. Yet it’s also true that in the new Middle East, the influence of al Qaeda has waned. Some of the credit goes to the counterterrorism operations that target and kill al Qaeda operatives. The larger reality is that al Qaeda’s mission has become increasingly outdated as radicalized Middle Easterners wage their struggle closer to home.""" says former Bush speechwriter David Frum 2013.

It's interesting. I look at the violence around me and listen to the unhinged rhetoric of the Neo-Fascists in the GOP, I can almost smell another Pot of Hell Soup simmering with the violence, preparation for violence and the rhetoric justifying violence bringing the elements of carnage to a boil.
Oh, I know: Obama inherited a peaceful, democratic Iraq and a region whose governments were attempting to out liberal the other. My bad.

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