No Guns Allowed: H.R.2401 – No Fly, No Buy Act of 2009
Official Statement of HR 2401: To increase public safety and reduce the threat to domestic security by including persons who may be prevented from boarding an aircraft in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and for other purposes.
Carolyn McCarthy (D) NY, has introduced legislation which willprevent citizens on the N0 Fly List from being able to purchase firearms or ammunition.
I am appalled at the lack of legal reasoning this bill advocates. Lets look at what currently qualifies as grounds for denial under a criminal background check…
The Brady Act prohibits transfer of a firearm to a person who —
- is under indictment for, or has been convicted of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than 1 year
- is a fugitive from justice
- is an unlawful user of, or addicted to, a controlled substance
- has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution
- is an illegal alien or has been admitted to the U.S. under a nonimmigrant visa
- was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces
- has renounced U.S. citizenship
- is subject to a court order restraining him or her from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child
- has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence
- is under age 18 for long guns or under age 21 for handguns.
What do these have in common? They provide a public avenue of justice. If legislature has deemed an individuals actions to be against social policy and court system concurs, the sale of firearms is prohibited- such as convicted felons.
This proposed bill, HR 2401, deprives a person of a public legal method for acquiring a constitutionally provided for right. Destroying Due Process in order to facilitate a policy which undermines the Second Amendment is morally bankrupt. It is repugnant to the rule of law, people are not pawns.
“For far too long, the ‘terror gap’ has left a wide open loophole in our nation’s gun safety laws that could allow terrorists to acquire guns the same way any law abiding citizen can,” McCarthy declared as she introduced her bill. McCarthy and Congressman Steve Israel, flanked by law enforcement officials, stressed “the importance of keeping guns out of the hands of people that are known or suspected terrorists,”
Carolyn McCarthy is an avid supporter and vocal advocate of gun control. I do not believe her intentions are to curb terror. Subverting civil liberties in the name of a nebulous war on terror is painful enough. If the true motive is to erode gun rights then it is a shameful fear tactic veiled in deceit.
Upon further inquiry, I found that Carolyn McCarthy holds a nursing degree rather than a law degree. Perhaps she does not know of the implications such a law… But ignorance of the legal procedure is hardly a defense for lawmakers. Far from me to denigrate a fine profession, I believe her heart may be in the right place, but her bill is not legally sound. In fact its dangerous.
According to USA Today, this No Fly watch list numbers nearly one million. One million people put on a secret list, generally without cause, is in itself legally corrupt. To then build upon this absurd framework compounds the injury.
It does not matter if you agree with firearm control because this guised bill is it not the way to introduce such a change.
Instituting a policy where closed door decisions would deprive citizens of a constitutional right is ugly.
I am unaware if McCarthyism realizes the irony of introducing a bill that ultimately relies on unfounded accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence to further her political agenda. – Michael Kraemer
We should brag about this kind of thing to our conservative friends. They always complain that “liberals love the bill of rights… except the Second Amendment.” They would love to see an ACLU type like you defending their rights!
I know we talked about this in real life, but I’ll post it here too. The USA Today article says 1 million entries, but only 400,000 people on the list. Only 400k? Yes, only. Out of 6.8 billion, that only represents .006% who are considered among the most dangerous potential flight passengers. I’m sure there are mistakes, but that is not a shockingly large number.
Let me tease you a little bit by attacking your statistic.
Q. How do you know it is out of 6.8 Billion? How do you know it isn’t largely Americans?
Q. They claim 400,000 people are on the list but have 1 million names… They could literally just make it up and the public has little recourse. I believe the axiom, Trust But Verify. Can you verify?
Q. What is the metric used to assign people to this risk category? Does this violate the Constitutional protection of Due Process?
You don’t ever know exactly. That is the problem with secret programs. Public scrutiny is very important to keeping institutions honest. Good intentions can become jaded very quickly – like torture of detainee’s which violated jus cogens.
I’m not going to chase this argument further down the conspiracy rabbit hole. My sole point was that this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Even if every single of the 400,000 is American, that is still just .13% of the American population. If none of the names on the list is foreign, then we are saying that Osama bin Laden is not even on the list, by the way. Still not a huge deal. That means that 99.87% of the population could fly.
Your point about due process is well taken with this proposed bill, which is why it has no chance of passing. But the due process criticism is not well taken with airport security. If you have been through an airport in the past several years, you know that TSA security is not required to respect due process like in other aspects.
This is sort-of pedantic, but if you verify then you don’t trust. You verify because you aren’t sure. No?
I see how it can be interpreted as logically circular, so good question.
In the particular case of the no-fly list, this is compiled from the various intelligence agencies. While I trust they are identifying potential threats, I am unsure of the methodology or that basic civil liberty protections are afforded to those identified. Thus I want to verify.
To rephrase; It is easier to trust that intelligence agencies are acting in a protective capacity. Verification is needed because it is inherently harder to discern whether the “Ends” either “Do” or “Don’t” justify the means. Also, agencies whose scope is to deter terrorism sometimes suffer from myopia and need outside forces to serve as a check.
At any rate, three words “trust – but – verify” rarely do justice to nuance.
I guess its more about the poor precedent such a move would establish. But these types of nebulous legal maneuvers aren’t anything new. Certainly doesn’t make them any more just, though.
Exactly. The ends do not justify the means.
Arent you living in a bit of a fantasy land. Lincoln recognised this. How far do you fall with the Constitution? What methods can we use. These animals use their children and women to carry out their psychotic missions. Profiling is one tool. You think that everyone can be reasoned out of an act. They use women and children to carry out their Jihad! Again, as long as your liberal views are a risk only to you, be my guest. But all are at risk when you continually limit the ways we can protect it.
Hold up a second.
First, quit the extreme language. Statements like “they use women and children to carry out their Jihad!” does not make for rational, prudent decision making. The points isn’t about reasoning a terrorist out of a terrorist act. It’s about passing reasonable, consistent legislation.
You could make the argument that this is only a minor piece of legislation targeting a select number of individuals so minute in number that its impact on the general population is insignificant. But you didn’t. You got all emotional, Crusade-like on us.
Also, are you paralleling America’s effort to combat global terrorism to the Civil War? These are two fundamentally different struggles. The Civil War had a foreseeable end – the defeat of the Confederate Army and the preservation of the United States as a single, unified state. The “war on terror” has no foreseeable end and is a much more nebulous fight. Legislative or Executive actions must keep this distinction in mind anytime that seek to do something extraordinary, such as bypassing Due Process.
How should we word their methods? Was there anything prudent or rational about policies to prevent 9/11. Enforce deportation when caught with illegal licenses and illegal status might have helped. Hiring DMV employees with better standards. What we are finding more and more in this good country is that no law or laws will keep us as safe as racial homogeneity can. What country, culture or race should we want to emulate in the world. Unless we plan on shifting the bulk of our immigration to Japan we should prepare to accept all that comes with handing over the reins to another people. Has crime gone up or down as Norway and Sweden open their borders to non Scandinavian people? You cant profile because one group gets inconvenienced. So you have to inconvenience everyone. Costs costs costs. What are the financial benefits of diversity. Lawsuits? Racial window displaying? Where is the substance. When you are of the group that disproportionately doesnt pay income taxes, I guess everything is as easy as saying lets do it.