By Mike Sweeney, Gun Owners Action League
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste” -Rahm Emanuel, noted gun grabber
Once again the nation is debating the Second Amendment and once again many fascist politicians are using a multiple murder, this time in the form of a terrorist attack on American soil to restrict our freedom.
The void left by the San Bernardino attack is being filled with a call to wage war on the Second Amendment. President Obama, Senator Feinstein and the usual suspects are hard at work, this time attempting to strike at due process as a means to an end.
Their efforts, which they’ve marketed as “we want to keep terrorists from purchasing guns” are faulted to the core.
The basic premise of a “terrorist” being able to roam our country, while our government is watching them, with full knowledge of who they are and what they are capable of is absurd.
Even more ridiculous is the notion that this suspected terrorist might get into their car, stop for a non-fat soy latte at Starbucks, then drive to a federally licensed firearms dealer to acquire a firearm through legal channels.
The 9/11 terrorists took 3 planes down and killed almost 4,000 people with box cutters. Do we really think they are going to be piling into a federally licensed dealer so that said dealer can call the FBI and share their information to make a legal sale? Anyone?
The politicians who are simultaneously supporting Second Amendment restrictions and the no fly list are using the former as means of arriving at the latter. It’s nothing but a backdoor attack on the Second Amendment.
Every American should be concerned with this.
Earlier this week President Obama addressed the nation. In his speech he stated, that “there’s no good reason to let a terror suspect buy a firearm”. Let’s cut right through the hyperbole, this no fly list has NOTHING to do with preventing terrorists from buying guns at federally licensed dealers. It has everything to do with stopping and suppressing American gun ownership.
You should be concerned about this for a number of reasons.
First, it does away with due process. If you are unfamiliar with that term, think “innocent until proven guilty” in other words every criminal, no matter how heinous his or her crime has the right to a fair trial. Even the Boston Marathon Bomber, Jahar Tsarnaev received a fair trial, it cost taxpayers millions of dollars but it was his right and it was granted, nobody gave suppressing that right a second thought. He received due process.
The same has to apply here.
It would be criminal to let any legislative body pass a law, which did away with due process and enabled restriction of a right, whether it’s a fair trial, choice of religion, or self-defense as recognized by our Second Amendment.
This is exactly what the no fly list does; it gives a nameless bureaucrat the ability to put anybody on a list, which literally finds that person “guilty until they can prove otherwise.”
To make it worse, the list is full of errors, nobody knows how a person winds up on the list and it is very difficult to get off of the list. Also, there is no oversight on the list, there is literally nothing to keep said nameless bureaucrat from adding anyone and everyone he wants, or is ordered to, onto the list.
This could easily result in a massive attack on our guaranteed rights. The Fifth Amendment is very clear; the government cannot deprive a citizen of life, liberty or property rights without due process. That due process has to be more than an arbitrary list kept by an unknown bureaucrat.
Let’s remember this going forward and not let our elected officials utilize Rahm’s favorite axiom, this crisis, nor any, should ever be used as a means to an ends for seizing power for the government over the people.
Let’s keep the no fly list on the ground where it belongs.