Posted on 09/17/2007 11:37:32 PM PDT by neverdem
Mayor Bloomberg is calling on Congress to back new legislation to keep guns away from terrorism suspects.
Yesterday, the mayor and Senator Lautenberg of New Jersey, a lead sponsor of the bill, said current federal law has an inexcusable loophole that allows individuals on terrorism watch lists to purchase guns legally.
The mayor said Congress cannot wait and must act before a terrorist opens fire in a restaurant, train station, school, or other public location.
"How many more warning signs do we need?" Mr. Bloomberg said during a news conference at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the city's most glaring terrorist targets. "We know that terrorists want guns, we know who many of them are, and we're not doing anything about it."
Mr. Lautenberg, a Democrat who is jointly pushing the legislation with Rep. Peter King, a Republican of Long Island, said, "There's a gap in our laws that defies common sense."
He cited a terrorist training manual discovered in Afghanistan in 2001 instructing would-be terrorists to buy weapons in America. He also cited a 2004 investigation, conducted at his request while he was seeking support for a prior version of the bill, which found that individuals on various terrorist watch lists had been able to buy guns from licensed dealers 47 times during a nine-month stretch.
"This isn't a theoretical exercise," Mr. Lautenberg said. "Terrorists cannot only buy guns, they do."
Both men said that now that the Bush administration is on board, the legislation has a strong chance of passing. In April,...
--snip--
He said there is too little due process and that the system could actually help terrorists by alerting them that they are being watched. Mr. Bloomberg dismissed that claim and said that only groups that don't support it are "special interest extremists."
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Bloomberg and Lautenburg may declare all of us terrorists, if they see it as a way to grab guns.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Bloomie is a “special interest extremist”. Why we let them be called “moderates” is beyond me. I put Rudy in there with him.
Isn’t this 2004 investigation he’s talking about the one where he interfered with an ongoing federal investigation by hiring private investigators to go out of state and make straw purchases that he then paraded all over the place, thereby blowing the fed’s case and wasting hundreds of man-hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars?
This is one of the reasons why I think SCOTUS will grant "cert" in Washington D.C. v. Heller, the former Parker v. Washington D.C. which D.C. lost. Say your prayers and keep your fingers crossed. Yes, I'm a little superstitious, but I'm optimistic. Souter and Ginsburg have written that the Second Amendment means more than "mere soldiering" in a militia. Only the Let's Roll militia worked six years ago.
He has one on his Human Rights Commission. One, Omar Mohammedi, who is general counsel to the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. He was appointed to be one of 14 members of the city's Human Rights Commission, charged with enforcing the city's anti-discrimination laws. However, Omar has been linked with a group that has been accused of condoning terrorism, and peddling conspiracy theories about the September 11 attack.
Maybe Bloomy should check his closet for guns?
I don’t fear a single terrorist (heck, even a group of terrorists) .... if the citizens are armed and able to defend themselves.
</sarc>
The terrorist watch lists used at the airport are a joke.
Virtually everyone with a common name is on the list!
For instance, anyone with the name David Nelson, Jack Baldwin, Alexandra Hay, Robert Johnson, etc. gets hassled when they try to board an airliner at the nation’s airport, because these names appear on a terrorist watch list. The same is true for countless people with common names....there are tens of thousands of other common names on these watch lists.
So, if these innocent non-terrorist Americans wanted to buy a gun, they would be barred from doing so under this bill.
Welcome to the screwed up American police state.
I’d have to oppose Bloomberg on this. Since when is the ‘terrorism watch list’ a judicial process that establishes someone’s unfitness to own firearms? This would set a terribly dangerous precedent. Like other posters have mentioned, what if someone in the government bureaucracy dislikes you, and decides to stick your name into the ‘terrorism watch list’ database? What is the process by which you can have your name cleared or removed? I don’t think there is one.
Once you establish that people on government ‘watch lists’ can be denied the freedom to purchase firearms, what is next? What if there is a ‘watch list’ one day for ‘subversive persons’ that would not only bar you from firearms purchases, but also things like vehicle registrations or business licenses? What, exactly, would stop this sort of abuse?
Of course, since this is a political grandstand, I doubt anyone proposing this really cares...
Forget about terrorist watch lists. The right to own a firearm in the U.S. is not to be infringed except through due process. This basically means that anyone who is eligible to vote — including people who have been convicted of misdemeanor crimes — has the right to purchase and carry a gun.
Their illegal plan is going NOWHERE. Why is it that liberals hate the No-Fly list, as a violation of civil rights (and full of errors!) but then OK the same list being used to stop people from buying guns? If these people are so dangerous - ARREST them! Bloomboy is a loser.
“Name, please.”
“Achmed.”
“And your occupation, please.”
“I’m a terrorist.”
“I’m sorry, but according to the new Bloomberg Law, no weapons for you! Next.”
Seee how well this works?
As I recal, part of the problem here is that the authorities may not have let on that some of these folks are suspected of being or associating with terrorists. And once they try to buy a weapon, the cat’s out of the bag.
There was great debate here whether it’s best to not let them legally buy weapons and therfore warn them, or to let them buythe weapons and continue to monitor their movements (I opted for the latter).
I’d rather not have terrorists on the loose at all, whether they are training hijackers in close hand to hand combat, poisoning the minds of children and gangbangers with hate, harvesting anthrax or bubonic plague, making pipe bombs, threatening to take down the power grid, stuffing a car with fertilizer bombs, etc.
We’ve had domestic terrorist attacks with guns and the public has been reminded that we have had “no” domestic terrorist attacks” since 9-11-2001. Forget about those shootings in the DC area, the LAX Air Israel thing, the mall shooting in Utah, the Jewish community center in Seattle...
This is just gun grabber legislation. They aren’t serious about fighting terrorism yet.
In the 1990s, the Clintons determined that the single biggest threat to (their form of) Government was the “vast right wing conspiracy”.
They said that the KLA was not a terrorist group. They pardoned Puerto Rican terrorists. Do not think for a minute that they would not put their political opponents ON the terrorist “watch” list in the absence of any crime or conviction.
The government has already determined they have the power to deny you a driver's license on the basis of back child support. They have also declared the power to deny you a passport on the basis of back child support.
If an American citizen is considered a terrorist threat, I would assume that the US government would feel there is some responsibility in keeping that citizen from traveling to another country where (s)he may make a terrorist strike.
If a deadbeat dad can be considered a flight risk, what about a suspected terrorist?
You only have the rights the government is willing to GIVE you. They have grown too big for their britches.
“They aren’t serious about fighting terrorism yet.”
Right you are! I sent a TX GOP solicitation back scribbled “Build the Fence” and “Seal the Borders” all over it.
Result? They sent me a thank you for your pledge letter, which I have thrown away.
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