(courtesy lincolnshireecho.co.uk)

Here in the United States, the latest proposal in the gun control debate is to ban anyone on the “terrorist watchlist” from buying guns. This seems like a good idea for the average low information voter, but a quick peek behind the curtain shows that this might be the most dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional proposal that has ever been discussed. Over in the United Kingdom guns are already a taboo subject so when the Crown decided to add all of these “dangerous” gun owners to a central database for a similar reason no one batted an eyelash — or even noticed, until they spilled the beans in a “case study” buried deep within a boring government report.

Via the UK Shooting News:

BPD Case Study: Preventing Access to Firearms
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008 and the more recent shootings in Copenhagen and Paris in 2015, highlight the risk posed from terrorists gaining access to firearms. To help manage the risk of UK based subjects of interest accessing firearms, the intelligence agencies match data about individuals assessed to have access to firearms with records of known terrorists. To achieve this, the security and intelligence agencies acquired the details of all these individuals, even though the majority will not be involved in terrorism and therefore will not be of direct intelligence interest. This allowed the matching to be undertaken at scale and pace, and more comprehensively than individual requests could ever achieve. Completing such activities enabled the intelligence agencies to manage the associated risks to the public.

Let me try to give you a TL;DR on this. The Crown is concerned that a Paris style terrorist attack might happen in the UK. Despite the fact that the firearms used in the various mass shootings in and around Paris this past year have all been from illegal sources and smuggled in through the black market, The Crown has decided to start combing through the records of every gun club in the country looking for any suspected or possible terrorists among the population of law abiding gun owners.

There’s two concerns with this latest revelation.

First, there was never any indication that the information being handed over to the police was being stored for future use. Every person who joins a gun club in the UK must submit their information to the police to be checked against the same background check system they use for firearms permits, and the prevailing belief was that this information was then immediately discarded. Apparently that doesn’t happen, and now all of the gun club members in the UK (about 1 in 65 people) have their personal information in a massive database tagged as a “gun nut.”

The second concern is that the British government might be starting to implement the same system that the US gun control activists have been clamoring for. If they are using their version of the terrorist watchlist to screen gun club members (even ex post facto) then it’s a simple logical hop to start using that same process to deny people access to firearms based on that same list. After all, these are “dangerous terrorists” that the UK is trying to keep from owning guns, right? Like an 8 year old child? I mean, who doesn’t love it when their Constitutionally protected civil rights can be revoked by a secret list that anyone can be added to at any time for any reason with no way to be removed?

The good news for US gun owners is that the Bill of Rights protects the Due Process rights of American citizens, something that has been significantly degraded over the years in the UK to the point that criminals are required to incriminate themselves during interrogations. So while this might be a walk in the park for the UK to implement, it will be a much tougher fight to do in the United States — and an even tougher court battle to keep, even with the degraded Supreme Court.

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39 COMMENTS

  1. You’ve gotta love it! Someone detonates a bomb and the gun grabbers want more gun restrictions.

    • Do remember, every proposal, every tragedy is viewed through the lens of “Can’t this be used to increase the power of the state over every aspect of people’s lives?” That’s where the money, power and slaves are. Always have been, always will be.

      You do understand that total confiscation is a primary objective for them right? If they truly wanted to prevent terrorism, it is easy to simply bar certain “volatile” areas from being acceptable immigrant origin locations. Preventing terrorism was easy, and they are instead opting to spend time and energy tattooing numbers on the wrists of gun owners.

      In this country, I’m not sure if they understand how many of us there are, and how many of us will die, and more importantly kill, over this philosophical point. When it happens, I hope their list-taking tendencies have not been excluded from things like payroll and holiday party email invitations.

      When it happens, the addresses on that list will make hella good destinations for a 3AM molotov, BLEVE, m16, and video camera tour. There’re plenty of Iraq veterans who are still waiting for a real chance to fight for freedom.

      • Do remember, every proposal, every tragedy is viewed through the lens of “Can’t this be used to increase the power of the state over every aspect of people’s lives?” That’s where the money, power and slaves are. Always have been, always will be.

        Best . comment . ever !!!

  2. Well of course, in their and some of our leaders minds anyone who owns a gun is a terrorist. Now in reality, guns keep governments from becoming tyrannical like britten is heading, or already there.

  4. Who in the blue (expletive) thinks that terrorists are members of a gun club?? In the UK? Where it’s easier to build bombs (citation needed) then get a gun, Much less a firearm with modern asaultive qualities?

    • It appears that they honestly believe that gun owners are a bigger threat their goals than terrorists.

      And it actually makes perfect sense. Terrorists attack random civilians to inflict some kind of political message. Tactical and numbers disadvantages prohibit attacking hard targets. So, as long as there are still 100,000 or so slaves (I’m sorry, subjects) left in Britain, terrorists will never be a threat to the masters because there are still enough slaves to go around.

      As Ronaldus Magnus once said “we are a nation that has a government, not the other way around” and terrorists are primarily interested in harming the nation component of a people. The government doesn’t care except to the point that it inconveniences the routine tyrannies of the day.

    • No citation needed. Even in the US it’s easier to buy instant cold packs and nail polish remover than it is to purchase guns and or ammunition. Guns and ammunition often necessitate visiting a specific store. Cold packs and nail polish can be had anywhere there is a cash register and an employee willing to take your money.

      Acquisition of materials has never been and will never be the greatest obstacle to bomb construction. That honor belongs to the ignorance of the average slob who thinks combustion is some magical feat of PhD’s and that saying “hey, we’ll do it at 3” counts as highly sophisticated planning.

      That said, terrorists aren’t very smart either. Otherwise they’d blow themselves up in pairs. One on Tuesday to bring out the memorial crowd and then one on Wednesday at the memorial in front of dozens of live cameras while all the hippie dippies are writing “solidarity” in chalk rather than waste two in one shot as they so often do.

    • Oh, the list is much longer than legal gun owners. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano endorsed the 2009 report from her agency that considers all of these groups to be breeding grounds for domestic terrorists:
      — firearm owners
      — Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans
      — people opposed to immigration
      — people opposed to abortion
      — people who subscribe to the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution

  6. “The good news for US gun owners is that the Bill of Rights protects the Due Process rights of American citizens,…”

    Can someone explain to me how the ‘No-fly’ list and ‘Terrorist watch’ list have yet to be shot down by SCOTUS as unconstitutional considering the clear violation of the right of due process?

    • I thought you were going to say,

      “Can someone explain to me how the Bill of Rights — which is just a piece of paper with a written ideal — actually protects the rights of Americans?”

      The obvious implication is that neither a written document nor ideals protect anyone’s rights. In the end, it is up to We the People to protect our rights. And we need force of arms to do that in many cases.

    • Not true. If you build your own (think 80% receiver), there is no serial number and no record anywhere.

      This is an important lesson to learn……

  9. As far as I am aware, British subjects do not actually have any rights that are protected by a Constitution. They have the rights that the government grants them at any point in time. Therefore, while using a supersecret terrorist watchlist to assign legal penalties in fact would violate at least the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments within the Bill of Rights in the United States, I do not believe that doing the same in Britain would violate the rights of British subjects.

  11. In “Her Majesty’s colony of New South Wales” ALL licensed firearm owners are the police COPS database as “Persons of Special Interest” along with criminals, suspected criminals, outlaw motorbike gang members, associates of criminals, armed robbers, drug dealers, and pedophiles,

    I suppose they should be worried because any licensed firearm owner who practices regularly could easily outshoot the police and military, and service shooters have the added advantage of being able to shoot accurately while under stress.

    The Greens are most scared and this fear is demonstrated by the unrivaled hatred the Greens have for licensed firearm owners, but strangely not of criminals. According to the Marxist dialectic, criminals are ideologically close and citizens are ideologically apart.

    I suppose the irony that licensed firearm owners have a very low rate of criminality. Even FAR lower than that of the police themselves.

  12. I am an ex-UK citizen – living in France now. Let all what happens here in Europe be a strong warning to you guys in the US.

    Do not accept one piece of legislation, no matter how it is wrapped up and presented. The first move is subtle but the end goal is total disarmement folllowed by total subjugation.

    Also do not accept any of those so called immigrants into the USA (yes I know the US was built on immigrants) as the immigrants coming into Europe do not share Western values and if only 1% of them want to be a terrorist…… boom, you have been warned…..

    Don’t mock the UK, try to support an fight for better rights everywhere. It’s not easy to resist when most countries don’t have the 2nd ammendment.

    Keep strong and please don’t vote for Hillary Cuntlin…

  13. So while they concentrate on law abiding gun owners, Achmed the PC Terrorist from ISIS zooms through the border and blows up everything. Got it.
    Of course, after this happens, some famous buildings will have patriotic colors stating unity, and more draconian laws will be passed on citizens and subjects who have nothing to do with terrorism.
    Of course, to bar Achmed and his pals passage is racism.

    • Well stated ‘Indiana Tom’ and unfortunately what you said is the current plan by the ‘non-elected’ Europena Union. They are sh** scared that the people get to state what they feel and know to be the real truth.

      They are keeping everyone under pressure with the ‘racist’ card.

    • Next time you see a campaign for more gun control think about the guy who first thought it was a good idea….

      “This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!” – Adolph Hitler, 1935, on The Weapons Act of Nazi Germany

      • While I agree that Nazi Germany would have had a tough time doing everything they did without their strict gun control laws in place, please know Hitler did not say this.

        • I’ve said it before: Jews and some other groups were banned from owning firearms, but apart from that, the Nazis actually made it easier for German citizens to own guns. Gun laws under the Nazis were much less restrictive than those of Germany and almost any European country today.

  15. The British really like putting their subjects on lists. If I recall correctly, 200 plus years ago, every one of the founders of the US were on at least one of seven lists the British maintained, and at some point, being on one of these list would get a person hung.

  16. The Brussels guys used common household chemicals. Will a list be started of who buys hydrogen peroxide?

  17. Members of gun clubs should be the least of their worries. Oh well, they’re right about one thing, there will more than likely be a Paris or Brussels-style terror attack somewhere in the UK at some point, only it won’t be perpetrated by the people they’re focusing on, which is why it’s inevitable.

  18. Or they could do good ol’fashioned police work and get a clue. The terrorists originate from the middle east….

    …but we can’t profile, that’s racist.

    Try telling that to the victims surviving family members. I don’t think they would care too much about profiling.

  19. Remember that Britons don’t have a Constitution: if the Parliaments says something is the law, that’s the law.
    Welcome to Airstrip One

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