Senate leader McConnell says wants to deny guns to 'terrorists

So then you're in favor of allowing terrorists to buy guns legally?

 

That's not what he said at all.

It's frightening that so many people are willing, almost eager, to give up their basic freedoms and liberties, all in the name of some perceived safety. I have no desire to live in a society where we're solely dependent on the government to protect us, because they've proven time and again that they can't do it.

 

What a ridiculous question. Do you think those are the only choices? Agree to inroads into our civil liberties or we're on the side of the terrorists?

Of course we don't want terrorists to buy guns, but it has to be done within our laws and our constitution, otherwise we become something other than a free society. The degree to which the words "war on terror" have been able to erode our civil liberties is much more frightening to me than the threat of terrorism. We can't afford to wait until each one of us has our rights impinged before we start to care.

 

Thank you for understanding. So what do you see as the choices? What would you propose?

 

I haven't looked into the details enough, really, but since this is just a blog post... I would look for something like this:

Clear criteria for how/why someone is put on one of the lists. This criteria should include significant evidence of danger from the individual, not merely traveling to certain countries or reading certain websites. A fairly short probationary period (60 days?) after which the government must show a court of law why the ban should be more permanent or the ban must be removed and not put back without court approval. A procedure for the individual to challenge the evidence against him. There should also be a procedure so that a person on the no-fly list can submit to increased scrutiny and be allowed to fly during the probationary period.

There are probably holes in that a mile wide (both ways), but it's a step in the right direction.

 

OK, good. If there are holes they can be plugged. Then why can't something like this get done?

 

Because that's not on the agenda politically, just adding a gun ban to the no fly list. You see there are two groups opposed to reining in the civil rights abuses, Republicans and Democrats.

 

So the politicians would prefer to have people continue to be murdered? Every piece of legislation has been tabled by the Republican leadership despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of citizens want some sort of enhanced laws requiring background checks, etc. yet the Republican leadership won't even allow a vote. If it "not on the agenda" it's because McConnell won't allow it on the agenda.

 

So then your answer is to do what? What's your alternative? You see it's not that I really want to create someLIST. But when this or other ideas are put forth on how to solve these problems people shout "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" and then the conversation stops. And then nothing gets done and then there's another mass shooting and the process begins again with no substantive effort ever being made to solve the problem.

 

Once again, the issue is the lack of due process:

"the regular administration of the law, according to which no citizen may be denied his or her legal rights and all laws must conform to fundamental, accepted legal principles, as the right of the accused to confront his or her accusers"

No fly list=star chamber, lack of freedom, Orwellian control over people. Adding gun bans to those on a secretive no fly list is lunacy.

Due process: an opportunity for both the rule of law and individual freedom to be expressed. I'm starting to think the Donald might actually pull this off....he is clearly trying to set it up, if he does I think it may come to be the bellwether event of this election cycle.

 

Well MC, here's something you can do. Maybe you're aware that there are four pieces of legislation scheduled for a vote in Congress on Monday. Do you know what's in them? Have you even considered reading them and then contacting your representative about his/her vote on these bills? And when they don't pass (and they won't because the Congress is determined to do absolutely nothing) what will you do then? Maybe you'll just turn your back and console yourself that doing something is probably worse than doing nothing.

 

For the self sufficient it very likely is. I'm sure I guy like Bruce is better off armed, and should you happen to be in the same movie theatre or night club when mischief pops off you will be better off that he's there and armed too.

Imagine this...Walt Disney World and Universal are turning away badge carrying off duty cops who are armed too. Ridiculous, taking tools from the protectors...wake up. It is not the tool, it's the dark heart and mind of the bad guys.

 

Actually it's exactly what you said. You proposed nothing new at all and specifically said doing something new could be worse than doing nothing. Also, you haven't addressed my points about the legislation. Most people in this country are uninformed and uninvolved, acting like they really don't care about these matters as long as they don't affect them directly. Almost 90% of the people favor new laws re background checks and yet elected officials refuse to even debate the legislation because they're all in the pocket of the NRA and more concerned about being re-elected than actually doing the job they were elected to do.

And since you're going to play that "That's not what I said" card, go back and look at what I actually said (it's post #18). I said that the inconvenience that Bruce's friend experienced by having to delay a gun purchase (due to a mistake) does not rise to the level of allowing people to die. His friend's problem will get straightened out and he'll get his gun in the end. But if a slowdown in the process saves lives by keeping guns out of certain hands then I'm all for it. You would be too if it was your wife or child who got killed. All the other stuff, that's what other people said, not me. I just want something done. This problem is solved virtually everywhere else in the world but somehow the US can't do it? So email your legislator MC, and everyone else, and tell them to solve this problem. And stop acting like I did something horrible. I only suggested that we stop pretending that we care and actually start acting like we care.

 

I was watching Fox News when this happened and a former high-ranking police offer with NYPD said something very disturbing. He said we were being politically correct by not rounding up all the people who belong to a group that poses a threat to the U.S. similar to how we rounded up communists and other groups in the past. I guess he didn't read history and know that people were falsely accused of being communists and that some of these "communists" were just socialists who didn't pose a threat to the country. I guess he didn't read about the Japanese internment camps. I guess because he's a Christian who is probably a member of a mainstream political party that he could never see himself being detained and losing his constitutional rights without due process just because he belonged to a certain group. The Fox News anchor didn't even bother to challenge him.

 

Well, then there's that.

 

To bring this full circle......thanks for demonstrating why we keep the so called "assault weapons"....well played Sanantone.