GOP blocks efforts to deny guns to those on terrorist watch lists

I swear most of you people cannot read.

Two percent on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents legally able to buy guns

Now try again.

Dupe.

Can you show me that this measure would have, in any way, stopped the shooting in San Bernardino from happening?

You can't because it wouldn't have. Neither of the two involved were on the lists, and they received two of their guns via straw purchase anyhow.

So this measure is an empty attempt to look like they are "doing something" that actually would not have stopped anything related to the incident in question.

a reply to: ketsuko

Might stop the next one. Or the one that gets you.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
Then fix the list. What the hell good is it otherwise?

Exactly. Fix the list, then this might be a good idea. Until that time, and regardless of whomever we want to blame for the list being broken, the GOP is right to block this proposal.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: ~Lucidity

Its a backdoor gun grab and nothing more.

BS.

But the watch lists have also come under fire by critics who cite their false positives, secrecy, lack of due process, costs and inefficiency in keeping some terrorists from flying.

More than 47,000 people were on the no-fly list in August 2013, including about 800 Americans, according to a leak to the Intercept news media site. “The documents also showed that in August 2013, there were 680,000 people on the government’s master terrorism watchlist,” the American Civil Liberties Union noted, and “even according to the government’s own records, 280,000 of them have no affiliation with a recognized terrorist group.” www.newsweek.com...

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
I swear most of you people cannot read.

Two percent on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents legally able to buy guns

Now try again.

And you are missing the point of the objections.

This list has no due process oversight, so you are effectively removing a Constitutional right from people, no matter how small you think that number is, with no legal oversight at all without the people in question even being informed.

If this were voting rights, you'd be screaming to high heaven, but since it's guns and you think no one should have them anyhow, you agree with it.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity

originally posted by: SonOfThor
a reply to: ~Lucidity

What gets most people on a 'watch list'? Some bureaucrat hitting enter in a keyboard. Who defines terrorist? Bias institutions like the SPLC define militias with a broad stroke, bikers with a broad stroke, etc. (just like many do muslims).

This bill would effectively make it possible for a non-elected bureaucrat to deny an individual their 2nd amendment rights without due process of the law.

That might have a little something to do with folks' opposition to it.

ETA

About 420,000 people are on the list administered by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, though only about 2 percent of those are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents legally able to buy guns. [Source]

So let the other 98% slide, eh?

If those 470,000 people on the list who are foreigners are terrorists, then why doesn't the FBI actually go after them?

I also can't accept the notion of denying even 1 person the right to self defense, let alone 9600 who are put on some list by a bureaucrat.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
a reply to: ketsuko

Might stop the next one. Or the one that gets you.

MIGHT.

I can stop all driving too. It might save me from that traffic wreck I might have.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
I swear most of you people cannot read.

Two percent on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents legally able to buy guns

Now try again.

And?

That's still a potential group of American citizens that may be unfairly and unjustly stripped of their Constitutional rights without a trial. Until that's corrected and they're given some proper and expedient recourse to clearing their names, this is a no-go.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Yeah, I am assuming that judicial oversight would make it constitutional, but there is no guarantee

a reply to: SonOfThor


Exactly look at what the IRS did with targeting


These "lists" are just begging to be abused

I think this legislation could be a slippery slope, I'm gonna side with the Republicans on this one.

a reply to: ~Lucidity
www.thetruthaboutguns.com... from truth about guns so take it how ever you will but the list has had problems since 2008

There has been a lot of chatter in the last couple days about individuals on the “Terrorist Screening Database” (or simply “Terrorist Watchlist”) being able to purchase firearms in the United States. The usual suspects from Senator Harry Reid to activist news organizations have begun a campaign for banning individuals on this list from being able to own firearms, and while there seems to be support for that idea from the usual gun control activists the reality of the situation is that it is an amazingly dangerous precedent to set using a hilariously awful and unreliable database. First things first, what exactly is this “Terrorist Screening Database?” According to Wikipedia, the database is a combined effort of multiple government agencies to identify both known and suspected terrorists. On the surface that sounds like a pretty solid list of people who probably shouldn’t own a gun, but the issue is that the rules for being added to this ever growing list are amazingly loose and the database has been proven to be remarkably unreliable. A report published by The Intercept details exactly the requirements for being added to the list, and they are remarkably low. Back in 2010 the New York Times reported on one woman whose life had been ruined by being placed on the terrorist watchlist in error. They looked into the ways that people are added to the list and found that there was a very low bar to being added.

usatoday30.usatoday.com... from 2008 i guess they have yet to plug the holes in the watch list and the problems

WASHINGTON — The FBI gave outdated, incomplete and inaccurate information about terror suspects to be added to the government's watchlist for nearly three years despite steps taken to prevent errors, a Justice Department audit concludes. Responding, an FBI spokesman said gaps identified in the system should be fixed within six months.

www.mintpressnews.com... few more links on the unreliability of the watch list and how many problems it currently has

www.nbcnews.com... from nbc

The federal government lacks an effective system for allowing people to get off the no-fly list who are put there by mistake, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by 13 American citizens and permanent residents, including four military veterans, who have been barred from flights to or from the United States or over U.S. airspace. Many of them have been told they're on the government's no-fly list.

so the problem of once on even if innocent tends to make people skittish about some aspects so id think they would need to fix this first.

www.wired.com... one example of how complicated life can get if you are mistakenly put on the no fly list even by accident

The government contested a former Stanford University student’s assertion that she was wrongly placed on a no-fly list for seven years in court despite knowing an FBI official put her on the list by mistake because he checked the “wrong boxes” on a form, a federal judge wrote today. The agent, Kevin Kelley, based in San Jose, misunderstood the directions on the form and “erroneously nominated” Rahinah Ibrahim to the list in 2004, the judge wrote. “He checked the wrong boxes, filling out the form exactly the opposite way from the instructions on the form,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote (.pdf) today.

shes lucky she got pro bono lawyers to help her out but she still had to go pretty high up in the court process to eventually fix this situation

www.slate.com... from slate on the matter an article from Aug of this year

www.nytimes.com... ny times article on this topic from 2010 so its been riddled with problems for years

www.washingtonpost.com... article from washington post from 2014 claiming at least in Oregon the no fly list is unconstitutional

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Oregon ruled the government’s no-fly list is unconstitutional because Americans on it have no meaningful opportunity to contest their inclusion. Here’s the opinion. The judge didn’t say the government has to get rid of the list. But it does have to come up with a better way for people on the list to challenge the fact that they are on it. The government must also disclose to those on the list any unclassified information used to justify their inclusion.

so list stays but they need to fix it so that those on it can challenge it and face accusers in court

so perhaps these links are just some of the reasons this was not voted for by the GOP

www.npr.org... article from npr from last year on the no fly list

oig.justice.gov... warning PDF but this is from us department of justice and is titled "follow up audit of the terrorist sceening center" it is from 2007 and figured some people would be interested in the contents of this look into how the program was working back then

a reply to: ~Lucidity

Since you have to be a citizen of a state to buy a gun, why do they need a list. There are laws that are already in place. Enforce those first.

a reply to: ketsuko

Four years earlier, there were a million people on the terrorist watch list, according to figures gathered by USA Today, which cited the FBI and office of the Director of National Intelligence as sources. The two numbers could not be immediately reconciled. But they revealed problems in keeping accurate entries. Between 2007 and 2009, 51,000 people filed “redress” complaints that they were wrongly put on the watch list, according to the Department of Homeland Security. “In the vast majority of cases reviewed so far,” USA Today reported, “it has turned out that the petitioners were not actually on the list, with most having been misidentified at airports because their names resembled others on it.” www.newsweek.com...

And most of you all are the same people who won't let a few thousand very well vetted refugees find safe haven, aren't you? And these same representatives scare you daily too. Ludicrous.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
I swear most of you people cannot read.

Two percent on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents legally able to buy guns

Now try again.

I get that, but what happens after it's passed?

a reply to: ketsuko

And yet you are willing to deny humane treatment to thousands of innocent Syrian refugees on the tiny chance that one of them MIGHT be a terrorist? Kicking out these refugees, by the way, wouldn't have prevented these two recent terrorists anyway, seeing how one of them was from Saudi Arabia and the other was an American citizen.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
a reply to: ketsuko

Might stop the next one. Or the one that gets you.

MIGHT.

I can stop all driving too. It might save me from that traffic wreck I might have.

Yeah just like the refugees MIGHT be coming to get you. *Eyeroll

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
there were 680,000 people on the government’s master terrorism watchlist,” the American Civil Liberties Union noted, and “even according to the government’s own records, 280,000 of them have no affiliation with a recognized terrorist group.” www.newsweek.com...

Thank you for proving my point.