On Monday, Congress shut down two “No-Fly, No-Buy” bills, which would essentially give the government the power to stop the sale of a firearm to a “suspected terrorist.” Did they do the right thing by killing those bills? Yes. Did the do it for the right reasons? No. It was opposition based on politics, not principle.
Update: Already, on Tuesday, a new bipartisan — what they’re calling a “compromised” — iteration of the bill is being put forth. See video above.
Yet, regardless of which version you read, all are flawed for pretty much the same reasons. Below, I’ve tried to articulate why one should staunchly oppose No-Fly, No-Buy legislation. Hopefully, this helps to set the record straight because believe you me this isn’t the last time No-Fly, No-Buy will come up for a vote.
1. Due Process
The most obvious objection to No-Fly, No-Buy legislation is that it violates one’s right to due process. To be overly simplistic, everyone is entitled to their day in court before Uncle Sugar yanks away your rights. With No-Fly, No-Buy the government is depriving you of your Second Amendment rights without (a) your knowledge and (b) without a streamlined system for you to get them back.
That’s correct. You won’t know you’re on the No-Fly, No-Buy list until you try to purchase a firearm or get on a plane. How wonderful is that? You show up at O’Hare, wearing your deck shoes and Hawaiian shirt, hoping to fly out to Las Vegas for a weekend getaway with the wife and then the TSA suddenly swarms down on you like ants on an ice cream cone. “No flight for you!”
Let’s be honest about what a pain in the butt this is. I mean, changing your cable subscription is an arduous and time-consuming process. I can’t tell you how many hours of my life I’ve wasted trying to get my Internet operational over the past few weeks. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to clear your name from the No-Fly, No-Buy list?
One bill tried to address this problem by limiting the amount of time the government could suspend your Second Amendment rights to three days. Then, after three days, prosecutors would have to present a case to make the ban permanent. But what about your right to a fair trial? Can you lawyer up adequately in three days to fight whatever wild accusations the government is purporting? Also, who the heck is going to foot the bill for your lawyer?
What seems like a reasonable idea isn’t all that reasonable when you actually start to think about the implications.
2. Suspected Terrorists?
Let me ask you a question, who is a “suspected terrorist”? What lands you on the No-Fly, No-Buy list? From what I’ve read, there are at least two lists. The Terrorist Screening Database with 800,000-plus hapless members and the No-Fly list with approximately 50,000 or so hapless members. To land on the No-Fly list, the parameters are a bit clearer in that the government believes you are involved in a terrorist plot, you have terrorist pals or you are providing material support to terrorist organizations. To wind up in the TSD, it’s not really clear whose toes you have to step on.
Let’s back up for a moment. As it relates specifically to the No-Fly list, if the government has credible evidence to support those suspicions (you’re plotting an attack, you’re paling around with evildoers or you’re helping out evildoers in a substantial way), why the hell doesn’t it just arrest you and charge you with the appropriate and relevant crimes? Why does it place you in a weird, extra-Constitutional purgatory?
In civics class, I was taught that you’re innocent until proven guilty. Now the presumption is your sorta guilty and the government is going to take away your rights without your knowledge until you suddenly find out and challenge them in court to have them restored. What the heck is going on here?
The way the justice system is supposed to work is you are either violating the law and your rights need to be revoked or you’re not violating the law and your rights need to remain intact. It’s pretty straightforward.
That’s really the underlying problem with this watchlist nonsense. It allows the government to circumvent the courts and adjudicate on its own who ought to lose fundamental rights. The process is not transparent (the lists are kept secret). There are no checks and balances (there have been several high-profile mistakes). And there is no stopping it from labeling you or me a “suspected terrorist.”
If this sounds bad, it is! We’ve allowed our government to create its own SS!
3. The Myth of Public Safety
One of the biggest problems we face as a society is that the government has convinced us that it is responsible for keeping us safe. As it relates to foreign enemies, sure, it is. That’s why we have a military. But at home, things are different. We have local law enforcement to enforce the laws and keep the peace. We also have a ballooning government security apparatus (DHS, NSA, FBI, etc.) whose job it is, well, isn’t always clear what the Feds actually do or why we need them but either way, the collective efforts of these two forces is to fight crime retroactively. The realistic goal for these agencies is to take bad people off the streets after they’ve been bad — not before.
While they’d love to stop crimes before they happen, it’s really, really hard to do. It does happen from time to time, but more often than not, bad people to bad things to good people before the authorities can intervene.
What we should learn from 9/11 is that regardless of how much we spend or how many more agencies we create, we’re never going to get all the bad actors off the streets. Never! This means, of course, that the government can’t keep you safe. It just can’t. The onus is really on you. In fact, it’s always been on you. You are responsible for your own safety (say that back to yourself if you need to). The more equipped you are to confront and stop evil, the safer you will be. As a society, the more equipped we are as individuals to confront and stop evil, the safer society will become.
Ultimately, that’s the solution to domestic terrorism: an armed, vigilant and engaged citizenry is how to maximize the safety of the public. After all, who knows our backyards, our neighborhoods, our cities better than we do?
Now, let me be clear, I’m not advocating for vigilantism or rogue civilian militias, I’m just simply saying that if we worked hand and hand with local law enforcement on a regular basis a lot of our domestic terrorism issues would go away. However, the problem is, the federal government keeps telling us — via its gun control agenda — that we’re not part of the solution. That it will handle it by themselves. All it needs is our guns and our Constitutional rights. Once they have all our guns and most of our freedoms, then we’ll be safe.
Yeah, crazy talk, right? But that’s where we are. Government bureaucrats want to disarm us, strip away our freedoms in exchange for something they know deep down they can’t deliver: public safety.
4. Inefficacy
The most convincing reason to oppose No-Fly, No-Buy is that it would be laughably ineffective. Terrorists can source guns in any number of ways. They can steal them from law-abiding citizens, use straw purchasers who will pass background checks, buy them on the black market and have their well-heeled terrorist pals traffic them across the borders. What lawmakers don’t understand is that if the criminal demand for arms is there, the supply will follow. Remember, guns aren’t that hard to come by these days. Scarcity is not an issue (Note: I’m not advocating for fewer guns, I’m just pointing out the reality. There are a lot of guns in the world).
For the most part laws, sadly, do not stop evil men from carrying out evil deeds. The attacks in Paris underscore this argument. France is an anti-gunner’s dream. Effectively, civilian gun ownership in terms of carry rights is non-existent in Paris. Yet, despite the harsh gun laws, terrorists had no problem shooting up the city. They had no problem getting guns and using them to take the lives of innocent people. It doesn’t matter what we do legislatively, if the criminal demand for firearms exist, the supply will follow.
As it was mentioned previously, the best way to stop domestic terrorism is a vigilant, armed and engaged citizenry working hand in hand with local law enforcement. Laws are meaningless to the lawless.
5. Bad Precedent
It started with No-Fly. Now, they want No-Buy. What’s next, No-Drive? No-Lie?
Ponder the possibilities for a moment. The government believes you’re too dangerous to fly and to buy guns and to drive a car, because, you know, an automobile is really a two-ton weapon. Think I am crazy?
I don’t. Perhaps it’s not cars they go after because the automobile lobby is pretty good about keeping their death-traps-on-wheels on the road (I’m being sarcastic, but it’s funny to see how one could demonize cars much in the same manner anti-gunners demonize firearms, e.g. “assault weapons”). Instead, they go after free speech. What the government calls “lies,” hence the “No-Lie.” If you’re on the watchlist you lose your right to free speech because you’re fomenting terrorism. When you speak out against the state, when you criticize the government, when you agitate for social change the government believes you are an enemy and, therefore, your right to free speech ought to be suspended indefinitely.
I’m telling you this watchlist business is a slippery slope if there ever was one. No-Fly, No-Buy, No-Lie. Just you wait and see. It’s happened before. And it’ll happen again.
Conclusion
The plain fact is that most people don’t really give a shit about the Constitution, mass surveillance, privacy rights, the Second Amendment, the bedraggled and bedridden state of this country. They’d rather play Angry Birds on their smartphones in between the commercial breaks of “The Biggest Loser” or whatever crappy, life-sucking reality TV show they put on to keep themselves from thinking long and hard about their plight and station within the world — all of which is to say that due to the public’s political disengagement and pervasive apathy about the things that really matter, a No-Fly, No-Buy bill will eventually clear Congress and it won’t make one bit of difference on the terrorist-fighting front, yet it will march us just a little bit closer to the totalitarian state to which we are destined to fall.
Yeah, S.H. Sadly…and even pitifully for our late great Nation of Freedom, your CONCLUSION said it all.
Gun people seem to be finally, albeit slowly, coming around to the use of appeals to other constitutionally-guaranteed rights in the defense of firearms. I get so sick and tired of hearing 2nd Amendment arguments! I don’t give a rat’s patootie if the 2nd Amendment doesn’t protect an individual right to arms! Even if that were true, that wouldn’t mean that you don’t have such a right, it would only mean you’re looking in the wrong place for it!
Case in point, legislation such as in Connecticut that requires the registration of certain firearms. Every owner of such arms should join a state-wide club, and then have the club’s attorney give legal advice to the members of the club by answering two questions in the club’s newsletter (this is important, because it forms a basis upon which you can defend your defiance of the law, should you be prosecuted for violating it):
1. Can ANY information I give to the government be used against me in a court of law?
2. Can I be required to give the government any information that can be used against me in a court of law?
The answers to these questions are “Yes” and “No,” respectively. On the advice of your club’s attorney, you will have effectively immunized yourself from prosecution under such laws. The “right to remain” silent is, in fact, the right to not bear witness against yourself. It is not just the right of suspects, it is the right of all citizens even before they become suspects! (Suspects in American courts have the right not because they’re suspects, but because they have the right as persons within this nation.)(If you’re thinking “IRS” and “tax returns,” this has already been tried in court. It doesn’t work. Why? Because the IRS will say in court that filing a tax return is VOLUNTARY. If it were required, your tax return would be inadmissible against you, and you could cheat on your taxes to your heart’s desire, and at least your return couldn’t be used against you. NOTE the the IRS uses a type of legal sleight-of-hand that’s not available to the government in a gun registration scheme, so they couldn’t pull this type of stunt. If the state were to admit that registering your firearm was “voluntary,” well, would you register it?)
I don’t think there’s firearms legislation anywhere that doesn’t, in some manner, infringe upon constitutionally-guaranteed rights (and others) in one way or another. Stop relying on the 2nd Amendment! Learn your rights and defend them all! You can start by thinking of firearms as property, and nothing more. You have a right to property, don’t you?
I wonder how much help did the NRA and the gun manufacturers helped you in writing this BS blog. The waiting period to buy a gun should be at least TEN working days. And any glitches in the application of the submitter should be notified. All the Law enforcement agencies need to jointly share any person’s that raised a flag. It is better to make a mistake and falsely flag an applicant than to provide loopholes for a domestic or foreign terrorist to obtain a weapon. As always you gun nuts are only concerned about your right to have and purchase guns but not preventing the loss of a life. Get someone to show you how to Google what nation leads in gun death, ownership and incarceration. The First objective should be is to write FEDERAL Laws that will make it a crime to use a firearm in the commission of a crime against persons or property and that they should receive a penalty no less than 15 years, it be attached and applied consecutively to other charges. NO gun should be sold or purchased without a Background check unless the person has a concealed handgun permit that is not over two years old. This includes private sales or gifts. The seller should require a transfer sale or gift of the firearm, such as the requirement of a selling and buying a vehicle.
However, I am against any laws of requiring Law Abiding Citizens to register their firearms, such as in Washington, DC and some other states. No unlawful person should have a gun in their home under penalty of law. ALL sells of assault weapons should be outlawed and sales stopped, all those that have them should be registered with the ATF and fees applied to them as the same as fully automatic weapons.
Maybe one day when all the ignorant gun nuts are gone the USA will duplicate the Swiss nation custom of all law abiding citizens having guns in their home.
Background Checks For ALL sales of firearms. No-FLY, No Guns.
1. It is already a law concerning using a firearm in commission of a crime. If the govt would prosecute and follow thru on penalty, that would actually be a good start, enforce the current law.
2. You must submit to a background check before buying a firearm. This check already coordinates with local LEO, and LEO from other p!aces you lived in the past where you got in trouble with the law. Again, already a law and implemented. Example: Roof. Had a drug arrest, should’ve been denied, but someone didn’t code it correctly. And there is already a law about selling/gifting/transferring/providing people with criminal backgrounds a gun. So if you do, there is a penalty. Again, enforce the law already written.
3. Smart, law abiding gun owners should have a transfer of ownership signed by witnesses for a private sale. this saved my ass on one occasion. A friend turned to criminal behavior 5 years after the sale (hadn’t a seen or spoken to him in 2 years prior) and LEO came asking, I gave a copy of the paperwork, that’s all they needed.
4. If I choose to gift another law abiding family member a gun, it’s none of your damn business.
5. The evil “assault weapons” are semi-automatic rifles. So in your mind, would a Ruger 10/22 with a 25 round magazine fall under the same category???? Or are you going to ban rifles by caliber?? If you can by caliber, does that mean I can’t buy a bolt action/single shot rifle of that caliber? Don’t let the camel get his nose under the tent……
6. Fuck no-fly/no buy unless the entire process is publicly debated and processed to address the correct and constitutional due process requirement. Not like the govt would have a 4 year old, 11 month old, 8 year old, etc on that list, noooooo, that wouldn’t happen. Or citizens who got on a plane, flew out of country, then couldn’t get back….noooooo, that couldn’t happen.
(Insert mikedrop here)….. I’m out.
The basic problem is that it’s incredibly easy to get on the no-fly list, next to impossible to even find out why, and even harder to get off it even when you’re on it for absolutely no valid reason. There have been way too many cases of mistaken identity, misspekled names, accidental inclusions, etc., and all of them have been people who went through a long and grueling process to find out why theyt were even on it. There are tens of thousands on the no fly list who don’t even know they are, just because they never fly.
I could maybe go along with no fly – no buy IF anyone being placed on no fly had to be notified, had to be told why, and had access to a specific and impartial appeal process. But none of those things are the case. As far as I can see, it’s just another case of people who actually believe that the more people they can keep from buying guns, the less gun crime there will be, even though the actual evidence shows that they’re living in a dream world.
This is a lot like the idea of no buy for anyone required to have a representative payee tpo get either Social Security or Veterans’ benefits. The big problem there was that either a single bureaucrat or a single administrative judge (not a real judge), can require someone to have a representative payee, and their reasons are not necessarily because someone is irrational or a danger to himself or others. He might even just be masthematically illiterate, which way too many adult Americans are nowadays. In fact, it’s very often a completely different kind of reason than irrationality or being in any way dangerous.
No buy is already too inclusive, with any felony and any domestic violence conviction being included. The guy who played some kind of shenanigans with stocks while a broker is no kore likely to hurt anyone than is anyone else, but he can get a felony conviction. The guy who slammed a door when leaving the house can, in some jurusdictions, get a domestic violence conviction. Other than the urge to do “something”, no matter how provably irrelevant, about gun crime, the biggest problem in this country todasy is the overall urge to see simple, one-size-fits-all “solutions”, without any desire to understand the real world results of those “solutions”. If something is too nuanced, to really fit the actual problem, nobody even wants to hear it. Plus most Americans todasy believe that a law will do exactly what the lawmakers claimm it will, even if reading the thing and thinking about it will show that it won’t, or will also do too many unmentioned things besides.
Too bad that:
A: We can’t edit after posting, and
B: I’m such a horrible typist
Earth to Steve…
As always you anti-gun nuts only got half your facts straight.
Fact: 75% of ALL gun related death in this country is black inner city gun violence. Remove that violence from the nation’s gun statistics and America ranks in the bottom 10 countries globally for firearms related deaths, while having the highest percentage of ownership. That is not a gun problem it is a black culture problem. Go talk to Reverend Al and get him to fix it.
Fact: The blacks in the hood, committing 75% of all gun deaths in the country, ain’t buyin their guns legally to begin with, so imposing TEN day waiting periods, more background checks, and whatever isn’t going to have a substantial impact on any of this. DOJ Survey of inmates in Federal Prisons indicated that approximately 95% of ALL inmates incarcerated for a felony conviction while carrying a gun, came into possession of that gun by some means other than through a federal firearms dealer, Less than 2% indicated they had purchased such at a Gun Show.
Fact: The San Bernardino Shooters and the Orlando Shooter were NOT on the no-fly list, could someone please tell me what the he11 difference would it make if they used the no fly list? The suggestion of such is another feeble attempt to make Washington politicians look like they are actually doing something, when in fact they are not.
Fact: Industry estimates suggest there are between 20 – 30 million so called Assault Weapons in this country, and over 3 billion rounds of ammunition for those weapons, in private hands. If Assault Weapons themselves and their possession by law abiding citizens were an issue, you’d know it. If you want the truth concerning these weapons, you’ll find it here:
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/assault-weapons/
If you want to keep on believing the lies, please don’t recite them on the internet, there is entirely too much stupidity circulated on that topic the way it is.
Correct and it’s mostly over drug turf.
Rocky:’.
I gotta agree with most of what you said, but not with that 75% being inner city black violence, which is complete nonsense.
In the first place, where’d you find that 75% figure? Is it one of those things that “everyone knows”, like I suspect it is?
Second, no matter what percent might be accurate, here’s a news flash. It’s 95% gang members, who ain’t even mostly black anymore. They’re Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, even White. And how about pure white outlaw motorcycle gangs? What color they are depends mostly on what city it is, and I’m pretty sure blacks aren’t even the majority anymore.
The thing is, if you want to nail the libtards for their cherry picking statisatics and their claiming that their conclusions and beliefs are facts, you really ought to be more careful about the “facts” you use against them.
You are a typical liberal socialist control freak. The second amendment is absolute in it’s meaning and government infringement is absolutely forbidden. This means every single gun law on the books is unconstitutional.
In ten days I could LEGALLY build a minimum of ten guns out of parts that can be ordered online and shipped to my home. No FFL or government involvement period. If I really wanted to break every law on the books those weapons could be full auto and have 100 round drum magazines. Waiting periods only affect honest law abiding people. Criminals can steal a gun, buy one from another criminal on the streets, or build one. They could build a shotgun out of off the shelf parts from any home improvement store.
Stop trying to push your agenda onto the rest of us. You don’t want a gun, then don’t own one. Leave the rest of the adults out of it.
Like Mr. Green commented, with no due process any bureaucrat who is involved with this mess, from our half white emperor on down can put you on the list for any reason. Remember the IRS auditing and otherwise abusing folks who were conservative, patriotic or otherwise determined to be evil? And aside from being annoying it may cost you a fortune in legal expenses if you try to get your constitutional rights back. The proper term for this is tyranny. Our government is moving more and more that direction and you had better be reminding your friends and neighbors, if they like guns, one option in the upcoming election has promised to do everything she can to take them away. Just think about the pictures of the action a few years ago in Australia with the thousands of citizens guns being destroyed. Huge piles of sporting arms turned into scrap metal, or as they said, turned into soup cans and park benches. Is that what you want to be the future of your favorite rifle, shotgun or pistol? Think about that next time you vote.
I can never escape amazement over the mental illness permeating our society. What does everybody mean when they say, like Herm above does, that with ‘…no due process any bureaucrat can …put you on the list for any reason…?”
What do you mean ‘CAN’ put you on a list>>>
THEY ALREADY FUCKING DO!
Why are we LETTING them already DO IT?
Why are we even debating adding another gun Ban to an ALREADY Fucking Illegal Fascist NO Fly action against We, The People?!
ALL GUN LAWS ARE AGAINST THE 2ND/AMENDMENT! You don’t need ANY gun laws to prevent crime. They don’t work, and the effort and resources and funds can be better spent in social educational behavior modification and advanced criminal rehabilitations.
” A Totalitarian Police State cannot exist where there are NO LAWS helping it to enslave the people” P.J. Klipangle.
What are we doing about that?
“We” are letting them do it because ‘we” are scared sh–less of terrorists, and anything someone claims will fight terrorism is fine with “us”. It doesn’t matter thsat your chance of getting hurt by a terrorist is about as much as your chance of getting hit by lightning. “We” are scared to death. That’s why cops today regularly do things, in complet accord with departmental SOP, that would have cost me at least a RIP, likely a suspension, and maybe even my shield 30 or so years ago. The police need more authority and leeway to protect us from all those evil terrorists. The basic problem is that most people just don’t understand that when yoiu let authority do something to supposedly deal with some type of bad guys, you’re letting them do it to anyone. Yes, even you. The bill of rights was written to protect the good people, not the bad ones. But if it casn’t protect the bad ones too, it can’t protect anyone.
I believe Senator Edward Kennedy was on the “No-Fly” list for a number of years before he passed away.
It took him several years to get off it, even with his power and influence.
Senator Fienstein (spelling?) says that 99% of the people on the No-Fly list are foreigners so this shouldn’t have a large American Citizen impact regarding our right to bear arms. That’s arguable. What isn’t is that it is already illegal to sell guns to Non U.S. Citizens, or US Residents with proper permits; so this NoFly No Buy list doesn’t need do anything more than our current laws (which we have a hard time recognizing and following) already are doing.
meant to say “US Residents WITHOUT proper permits…”
I think it’s probably Fein, not Fien. Either way, she’s sure a real fine lady, isn’t she? (Feinstein actually translates from German into English as Fine Stone I guess she must be a diamond.) Either way, the “it’s 99% foreigners” probably isn’t even true. In fact, the most reliable numbers I’ve ever seen had over 47,000 on the list, with at least 800 Americans. That’s more like 98% than 99% foreigners. That may be a small difference, but our legislators are supposed to be accurate and truthful. And Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the East are part of the cabal which controls the world by means of mind controlled minions. I wonder which one of them runs Dianne’s mind.
Anyway, that was the apparent count as of 2013, so who knows who’s on it by now? I haven’t come across any atttributable numbers as high as that 99% anywhere, and I haven’t heard of her saying where she got those numbers from. And what about that no-buy nonsense for tens of thousands of Social Security recipients and Veterans, which she thought was just peachy keen? Not a whole lot of them are foreigners. And even if the list is 99% foreigners, so what? If everyone’s rights aren’t protected, there’s no certaunty that anyone’s will be. A German Protestant pastor, Martin Niemoller, in a series of lectures after WWII, said,
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Now, different versions of that quote mention Catholics, Communists, Jehova’s Witnesses, etc. The guy spoke mostly off the cuff, without a written speech, and didn’t always say the exact same thing every time. But the point never changed; if you want to ignore it when the authorities screw with people who aren’t like you, you better be aware that you’re letting them set precedents that will eventually let them screw with you.
Dianne Feinstein unintentionally makes an argument against the INS but fails to make a sound argument against the 2A.
The no fly no buy is complete BS for all the things you all have already stated. A really good friend of mine, a brother Marine Recon Corpsman who I ate a lot of dirt and hurt with is on the no fly list. He is an Honorably Discharged disabled OIF/OEF Veteran. He is on the no fly list because he was on a flight, got a little drunk and got into an altercation with a fellow passenger who was physically hurting his wife in the seat across the row. He stopped the spousal abuse but the flight attendants saw him as the aggressor the flight attendants failed to do anything about, and yes maybe he went to far, but in the end TSA was waiting at the plane when they landed. He went through all the BS with TSA and the wife beater didn’t press charges so they let him walk out of there and no charges came. Anyways, that was about a year after he got out. About 6 months later he and his wife went to book some travel and they paid for everything but at the airport, a different airport in which this happened, he was told he can’t catch his flight that he was on the no fly list. After a year of fighting and a lot of hoops he got lucky, lucky in the fact that he found out why he was on the no fly list. Yet, last I spoke to him after 5 years he was still on the no fly list. I know one other person on the no fly list from smoking a cigarette in a plane bathroom when he was 18. He is still on the no fly list. So a war hero and 18 year old kid both on no fly list for dumb crap neither of which related to terrorism and neither can ever get a gun if this thing passes. I would hate, hate to be the LEO who goes to his door to get his guns. He is a highly trained and focused individual who can escape and evade with anyone. It would be like Jason Bourne in real life. Plus through in some paranoia and you have a well prepared person, highly trained and already has existing survival plans for SHTF? That’s a bad day for everyone.
The biggest reason to be against the no-fly, no-buy bill is simply because with the stroke of his pen, Obama can put all Christians, Republicans, Veterans or any other group on the no-fly list.
The 2nd Amendment is like the Tree of Liberty.
If we let the liberals keep taking little chops at it with their hatchets the base will weaken and eventually topple the tree.
We need to stand together in order to be counted. The NRA is a good start with 4.25 million members.
But knowing there are 100+ million gun owners out there we need get a lot more people on board with their votes and $$$.
In the past most gun owners just kept their mouths shut and quietly let politicians run the gun-rights show.
But keeping silent will no longer get it done.
I think the NRA commercials they are now airing are doing some good but we need more advertising and public education and those things require money…lots of it.
The TRUTH about guns needs to be told to counter-act all the lies the Liberals are spreading.
The sad part is that most of them aren’t actually lying most of the time. Lying means thatr you say things that you know aren’;t true. They mostly believe the nonsense they spout. Unfortunately, so do many on this side of the argument, like people who claim that Obama is a Muslim, or that just disagreeing with the government will get you on the list.
If we could somehow dump all the “if you ain’t on my side you’re an evil person and everything you say is a lie” attitude most everyone (on both sides) seems to have nowadays, and then somehow start talking about real, proveable, facts, especially considering that the actual evidence proves that the belief that just forbidding more people from legally owning a gun cuts down gun violence is utter nonsense, we might get somewhere.
But the whole country has gotten so far into the my side is always right and yours is always wrong that I just don’t see how we can ever get out of it.
Want a good example? Obamacare is an evil government takeover, right? Well guess what. The concept of the whole thing, wtith tax incentives and penaslties and all that, was originally invented by uber-Republican Newt Gingrich.i But as soon as Obama started pushing the idea, it was the worst thing ever, like the devil starting to take over the world. And it’s still the worst thing ever, even though it resulted in millions of Americans having health insurance for the first time in their lives. But nobody talks about fixing it (and it needs a Hell of a lot of fixing), everyone wants to just repeal it completely.
A politician with a military is far more dangerous than a citizen with a gun.
Remember Hitler?
How about King Edward of England?
The list goes on…
Very well done. Shame more of the people who really need to read and understand this won’t.
About having guns at all. The government is talking, as most of you are, about ammo that makes the guns dangerous that have casings, powder, primers and bullets. Not so with the new air guns that have power never dreamed of 20 years ago. And you don’t even need a silencer. They better be concerned about crossbows too. Hunters use them all the time along with regular bows and arrows to take deer and other game. Special forces use them at times. This whole issue is about a person’s mental health and if they have perhaps been affected by propaganda. If a doctor or agency has a real concern about a person’s mental health issues then they ought to contact their local authorities and let them handle it from there.
It’s this kind of opposition and excuses that give legitimate gun owners a bad name. We’re our own worst enemy at times.
Yeah, the truth hurts doesn’t it. I doubt you actually own more that a shotgun either.
Are you certain you are a “legitimate gun owner”? And if some bureaucrat decided to give you a “bad name” what then? You were right about the “own worst enemy” part,
The problem with the no fly list is really the percent of US citizens on the list. It is very small from what I can gather from other articles of around 2%. If the government feels foriegn citizens are to dangerous to fly then they are to dangerous to be in this country. Foriegn citizens come to the US as a privledge not a right. That priviledge can be revolked for any reason and in fact should never be granted. The answer is not to prevent them from buying guns it is to prevent them from being in this country which accomplishes both. If you are here illeagally you can’t buy guns anyway.
US citizens should go through the courts to be added to the list so you have due process.
That’s right, there should be the one way fly list for people that are so bad that they should be deported but BHO would never go for that ‘common sense’ terrorist control policy.
I wish the GunsAmerica writers and editors could be a bit more professional. You guys write and publish some meaningful articles. Unfortunately, the lack of journalistic skills / professionalism sometimes turns your articles from being ‘meaningful pieces that I can forward to friends’ to support my position to ‘just another rant’. This piece is a good example. It is a well written document and makes some great points. It borders on a good piece of journalism until the final paragraph when the author begins to rant – – – ‘…most people don’t really give a s*** about the Constitution…’
I know the blog was never intended to be nothing more than a blog, but you have the ability to influence public thinking! Take the challenge and make a difference!!
@Allen: I fully agree. It was a nice article to which I could have pointed others, perhaps those who were on the fence about “No Fly, No Buy”. But with that last paragraph, all semblance of objectivity was lost. I can’t refer anyone to the article now 🙁 :-(.
I’ll second that: this was the best, most cogent explanation of the evils of “No Fly, No Guns” that could have been used on web media, and been cited to in the record of Congress, but for the political rant at the end (which, by the way, I agree with, but wish was saved for another location!). For the good of the cause, edit it!
I’m so tired of the gun control agenda that it makes me physically ill at times. When I hear people parroting “No-fly, no buy… squawk!”, it takes every ounce of self control I have to not grab them by the shoulders and shake them. I’m sure the author shares some of this frustration.
Sometimes the best way to affect change is harsh, sharp, pointed criticism at current policies and ideals.
Given this administrations recent past with the NSA and IRS and ATF and EPA and BLM agencies, it would NOT be a stretch to think that people associated with Conservative Tea Party groups or 2nd Amendment groups or Smaller government groups or Voter ID groups or other assorted groups would be on the list….. after all, ALL of the afore mentioned groups to 1 degree or another are considered anti-government these days….
A very well written article. Should be an eye opener for a lot of folks.
The NUMBER ONE REASON: Your name will be added if you do not agree with their agenda.
The # 1 REASON: You can be put on the list if your views are not in line with theirs.
Don\’t forget, if we have a cashless society, you could find yourself on a NO-BUY list.
Don’t forget, if we have a cashless society, you could find yourself on a NO-BUY list.
I believe Feinstein would be more dangerous to American Bill of Rights than a terrorist!
Support for the No-fly No-Buy bill would pass if the following took place.
A. It was not run by the government!!!! Nothing is more true than the oxymoron of Government Efficiency. If you really want things fucked up, have the government run it.
B. A fair and equitable process of getting removed from the No Fly list. Again, just refer to item “A” above.
C. Clean/Investigate the present list and stop taking terrorist sympathizers off the list based on political pressure or lack of man power. Again item “A” says it all.
D. The first 3 will never occur until the element of political correctness and the Head Muslim in charge residing in the White House either gets kicked out or admits there is such a thing as ISLAMIC TERRORISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
E. And last but not least, the government needs to get off its lazy ass and start prosecuting government officials that break the law. Yes, HITLERY ROTTEN CLINTON, this mean you and your white Bill Cosby husband.
Omar Mateen was not on the terrorist no fly list. So if this radical islamic terrorist wasn’t on the no fly list, what good are they proposing this serve? They need to go back an answer why this anti-american, anti-woman, anti-homosexual islamic terrorist (twice interviewed by the FBI) was not on the list.
I believe in….and supported the 2nd amendment by proudly serving 26 years in the military with my fair share of deployments to combat zones. I believe our collective safety is more important than an individuals right. With that said….. If your name is on the no fly list or you are suspected of terrorism I don’t want you buying a gun. If you feel you shouldn’t be on that list challenge it and get your do process. Ryan is right…..you may want to step away from the pipe. Unsiscribe me.
Jerry those who want to control every aspect of our lives have you almost brainwashed. Our rights as guaranteed by the constitution are INDIVIDUAL rights not COLLECTIVE rights. The law specifically states that you are presumed innocent UNTIL PROVEN guilty not the other way around. The federal government hell all governments are run by people who allow their personal biases to affect other peoples rights. This is just a fact of life however this issue also goes beyond the power of the federal government. Its just another example of the government overstepping its authority. Those who are willing to give up their rights for (alleged) security deserve neither. The TSA has caught nobody yet harasses everybody. The FBI knew about Mateen but screwed the pooch in allowing him to do this. I completely reject your assumption that the government can protect us as as the evidence is overwhelmingly that they can’t. They do as good a job as is humanly possible but can’t catch them all.
I agree with you about not being able to buy weapons if evidence exist that an individual is whacked or hanging with known terrorist but the government needs to send notice of its decision and prove it immediately in a court. Secret lists are for secret police in communist or fascist governments NOT in America.
Problem is…the list(so called)…sometimes contains relatively common names with no other identifying information (description/photo/date of birth, etc). Not like the FBI most-wanted list.
Ted Kennedy was “on the list”…because someone else with that name (or alias)…was on the list.
Guess you believe people on the list also should not vote…right? How about driving? Can the get a private pilots license? Should they have ANY rights?
Hope your name gets on the list somehow…then see how it feels…you would be ticked off.
In fact…they may add you…as you MUST have had PTSD at some point…right? Think about that.
You missed a big issue. Uder the provisions of the Patriot Act (I/II), there are provisions for seizure and forfeiture off property and assets that does not require any criminal charges: just “suspicion” that a investigation will produce “Probable Cause”. This is a Civil action not Criminal so you must pay all your legal fees. Which brings us to the very similar No Fly-No Buy/Own (why the major omission of firearm already owned?).
NFNB Is also a Civil not Criminal Action, it has to be because there is no Criminal Charges just the revocation of Civil Rights. Regardless of the whatever Govermental bureaucracy and legal battles you must fight: its all on your dime. The Gov has a long history of property seizures, limitless funds and years to drain your financial resources. There will be no difference when you try to reestablish your Rights.
Please note there is a provision in Law for convicted felons to request the Feds reinstate 2A Rights. The Office that di these reviews has been not been funded in years and no action takes place due to a lacl of funding and resources. Government just turned it off like a light switch.
If the Gov does pass a version of NFNB, puts in a appeals process: you loose your Rights, pay all legal fees, hope you and your family (no guns in household remember) don’t get killed while your waiting AND the Gov can kill the entire appeals process any time it wants to.
Things are easy for the Government to take in the name of some alleged common good. You either never get them back or they are much worse for the wear and tear. If the Government is allowed to take an individuals RIGHTS without cause, clear justification and due process: then ALL Rights are not worth the paper they are printed on. If that becomes the case at hand, We the People will have decisions to make.
I’m supportive of the 2nd amendment but you need to step away from the pipe because you sound insane.
I think he sounds pretty straight-up and correct.
You must be an Angry Birds player, READ the Constitution and try to understand History and you will see that this is but 1 of the situations that the American Republic has had to endure since it’s inception
Sounds like either you have reading comprehension problems, a merely casual relationship with reality, or you don’t really “support the 2nd amendment” all that much….time for YOU to put down the pipe
Can you flesh out your response more thoroughly?
Ryan, What exactly do you think is insane about this article? I’m curious because most of the comments and reasons the author states are the same arguements I have presented when talking about ANY laws limiting constitutional rights of citizens.
Yes he does, think he has one too many “they’re out to get me” friends who’ve convinced him of his paranoia. Reality is that the Fed’s will put in place general blanket laws that just add a road block to buying our guns. If you’re doing anything that remotely gets you noticed by any kind of no-fly list then you probably deserve it. Maybe it’s because I’m in one of the more anti-gun states and I’m used to dodging all the red tape but if you’re just a bit savvy you end up being able to get whatever you want from a gun ownership perspective. With the exception of silencers, whatever though I’ll survive without one. It does throw a couple hurdles at numbnuts would-be aggressors so who knows if it helps but it doesn’t phase me as a gun owner.
I find it vastly amusing that Democrats want to deny federal suspects their Constitutional rights even while those same Democrats’ Presidential candidate is under an active FBI investigation.
You really want to go down that road, Democrats? Really? Or maybe you’d prefer just a little bit of due process all around, hmm?
As for the author’s conclusion I agree, but I also think that they’ll “wake up” as they are standing in line at their new DHS Neighborhood Protection Center to get their mandatory tracking implant. It’ll be “for their own good” though, in case “something should happen”.
Thank you…Finally someone on the right track to where this is headed and not afraid to say it. People think this is political. Yes it has politics involved with the theater voting system in the Senate etc, but we are under military style attack and soon to be occupation from criminal entities in our own gov’t if we let them continue tricking the masses into BS like No Fly/No Buy. The author was spot on and could’ve evem taken it 10 steps further I’m sure but most of you supposed 2nd amendment supporters are forgetting who your owners are