Lost in the publicity stunt that Democratic representatives of Congress pulled recently when they staged a sit-in over gun control is the fact that none of the measures they were pushing would have stopped the terrorist attack in Orlando.
Also lost on those who participated in the sit-in, which was led by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), was the fact that they were pushing for gun-control restrictions that, like the “No Fly” list, lack the most basic due-process protections -- quite an irony given Lewis’s fight for fundamental due-process during the height of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s.
The various amendments proposed were all variations of the same theme – allowing the attorney general to deny an individual’s Second Amendment right to buy or possess a gun if he is on various government watch lists, such as the “No Fly” list compiled by the Transportation Security Administration. As has been pointed out, this is a secret list. We don’t know who is on it, how you get on it, how it is maintained, or how you get off if you are mistakenly put on the list -- as has happened to many individuals, including Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard and Fox News or former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy. Even the ACLU urged senators to vote “no” on these amendments based on the “use of vague and overbroad criteria and the lack of adequate due process safeguards” in these watch lists.
We do need terrorist watch lists to prevent suspected terrorists from being able to repeat 9/11. And terrorists certainly don’t have any Second Amendment rights. But the recently proposed amendments were blunt instruments that were not the right solution. Having very strict gun-control laws and a virtual ban on the ownership of private firearms certainly didn’t stop the horrendous attacks in France in 2015. But they certainly may have prevented law-abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves against armed terrorists, just like the gun-free zone in the Orlando nightclub meant that the victims there had no ability to protect themselves either.
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