I was looking for a picture ofAmericans for Final Responsible Solutions deputy press secretary Sean Simons for this morning’s Quote of the Day when I came across this meme on his Twitter feed. As you know . . .

The civilian disarmament industrial complex wants to ban firearms sales to Americans on Uncle Sam’s super secret terrorist watch list (actually a number of lists). No presumption of innocence. No proof of criminality. No method for getting off the list. No accountability.

That’s what I call a “weak law.” But what do I know?

Only this: if 2000 people on the terrorist watch list bought guns in the last ten years, and that’s as dangerous as the antis insist, why have there been so few terrorist attacks by people on the watch list?

Three individuals who legally purchased guns while on the watch list went on to use them in an attack: Omar Mateen (Pulse nightclub), Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (attacked a recruiting center in Little Rock in 2009) and Elton Simpson (one of the attackers in Garland, Texas in 2015).

Surely if selling guns to two thousand suspected terrorists was a clear and present danger, it would have been more of a clear and present by now.

Not to mention that this whole “ban gun sales to suspected terrorists” presumes that radical Islamic terrorists et al. couldn’t get guns to carry out their attacks by stealing them, or straw purchasing them, or buying them on the black market. In a country with over 300m firearms in circulation.

Needless to say, the antis will say “if it saves one life” it’s worth it —
ignoring the fact that Mateen was taken off the list and Muhammad was caught red-handed in Yemen before The US State Department intervened to secure his release.

As the B52’s pronounced, well it isn’t. Our Constitutional protections should not be sacrificed on the altar of a vague and unproven notion of public safety. Or a proven notion, either.

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23 COMMENTS

  1. Even if not vague, we shouldn’t sacrifice our rights even if it were 100% guaranteed.

      • Is there a way to remove that annoying floating header?
        I know what website I’m on.
        It usually just gets in the way of a screenshot getting enough info to spread the message in one pic.

    • Well the whole marxist idealogy is mental retardation or a blatant disregard for reality. So yeah, a lot of them really should technically be barred on mental instability grounds. It seems like the people that have an unhealthy amount of cognitive dissonance get really violent when their imagined reality is crushed by the real world. That is pretty scary. And they say the people that want to be left alone are the scary ones…

      • Wrong, true Marxism makes sense, everyone works, to the best of their abilities and is compensated as close to equally as is possible and “fair.” (If there is such a thing)
        Human nature, i.e. Sloth, Greed, etc is the failure.
        There is NO reason some 19 year old you can’t spell or jump start a car should make 10(0)x+ what my local school teacher or garbage man makes by throwing a ball.
        Especially since faaaaaaar more people would rather play a game for a living, physical risks be damned. Or even included.
        Blame Lenin, and Stalin, and the Military Industrial Complex and morally questionable politicians. (Like there is any other kind…)
        Blaming non-guilty parties, ideas, or things is exactly what the antis do when they scream “ASSUALT WEAPONS!!!”

  3. I don’t think Mateen was on the list when he bought his guns.

    There have been two individuals who legally purchased guns while on the watch list, and went on to use them in an attack : Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who attacked a recruiting center in Little Rock in 2009, and Elton Simpson, one of the attackers in Garland, Texas in 2015. Muhammad killed one person, Simpson killed none.

    Ironically, Muhammad had previously been arrested in Yemen with Al Qaeda literature and books on explosives in his car. The US State Department intervened to secure his release and his return to the United States.

      • In fact, if we only count those attacks where the shooters actually used a weapon for which they underwent a background check, the total body count is actually zero. Muhammad used an SKS in the attack purchased from a private seller. He only bought a .22 rifle from Wal-Mart to ascertain whether he was being watched.

  4. At first glance, it does appear to be a compelling fact and I probably wouldn’t have given it more thought beyond “Eh, it happens.” Thanks for pointing out the idiocy at hand, Robert.

  5. Not to mention that this whole “ban gun sales to suspected terrorists” presumes that radical Islamic terrorists et al. couldn’t get guns to carry out their attacks by stealing them, or straw purchasing them, or buying them on the black market.

    … or by simply delivering peace one truckload at a time.

  6. Box cutters, airplanes, machetes, butcher knives, fertilizer and diesel fuel, trucks, vans, guns…. if these people are so dangerous, then we have a people problem, not a gun problem. Try again.

  7. So they mean to tell me there are 2,000 armed terrorists in the US, and that means I don’t need a gun?
    Not sure they thought that one through.

  9. Disarming the populace and secret government lists.

    Do two constitutional wrongs make a right?

  10. The fact is this is not an adjudicated list. Not only is it unethical and unconstitutional to block bill of rights liberties to the US resident people on it, the list workability for other purposes would be destroyed in the first few civil rights suits on second amendment use since a lot of details on how people are placed on it and its workings would necessarily be publicized in the suit in ways that airline flight, which is not an explicit right would not.

    Secondly of these “2,000” something like 1,800 to 1,995 are in fact not terrorists at all.

    Thirdly we KNOW that when you increase background checks that illegal purchases by prohibited persons move to the main source of guns in the hands of prohibited persons: straw purchase. In fact we already know of this happening in san bernadino.

    Fourthly if these 2,000 are bad guys, why do they have access to drivers license (not even an explicit right), pressure cookers, the internet, peroxide, etc.

    • You completely forgot the whole “due process” thing, which is the strongest argument against such lists.

  11. Jihadists are like cartel sicarios, if they are barred from buying a weapon, they will simply make a “suggestion” to a law abiding member of their community that purchasing whatever weapons they need will save their life..

  12. How’s this: if they maybe have done terrorism, investigate them; if they might yet do terrorism, watch them.

    If we find they have in fact done terrorism, prosecute them; if they start actually doing terrorism (while we’re watching), stop them. Shooting them works for this last case.

    Am I missing something?

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