Setting a new record for lethal insanity, Washington’s pro-gun absolutists insist that suspected terrorists must have an unfettered right to buy assault weapons rivalling those wielded by ISIS in Paris.
These members of Congress are radical fundamentalists of the Second Amendment kind, their extremism so intense that they stifle legislation aimed at denying weapons to potentially violent radicals while at the same time declaring that Syrian refugees, even toddlers, are security threats.
NRA OPPOSES LAW TO STOP TERROR SUSPECTS FROM BUYING GUNS
America’s porous gun laws empower dealers to sell weapons to essentially any adult who passes a background check. Very few classes of people are disqualified. Convicted felons are among those barred. Individuals named on the consolidated government terrorism watchlist are not.
Over the last 10 years, people on the no-fly watchlist have sidled up to gun-store counters 2,233 times and succeeded in making purchases 91% of the times. Ninety-one percent.
That success rate is terrifying, because, in taking 129 lives in little more than half an hour, the Paris attackers showed how deadly assault weapons can be in the hands of determined killers.
Back in 2005, FBI Director Robert Mueller urged Congress to consider closing the loophole. In 2007, President George W. Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, backed a bill to do that by Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Coming from a pro-gun-rights administration, the stance displayed an admirable commitment to public safety.
STASI: SUSPECTED TERRORISTS KEEP BUYING GUNS IN U.S.
The National Rifle Association killed the idea — and has kept it dead. At the moment, NRA power is bottling up a fix-it bill introduced by Long Island Republican Rep. Peter King and California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Opposing the measure, the NRA spouts that, thanks to inaccuracies, the 700,000 names on the watchlist includes some law-abiding gun owners. Perhaps, but the King-Feinstein bill would allow people to challenge denials.
Regardless, the NRA zealots are determined to let terror suspects buy guns rather than allow even a momentary infringement on a legitimate buyer’s ability to get a gun right this instant.
As always, the association says terrorists can get weapons regardless. Well, yeah: Determined bad guys might risk arrest by buying weapons on the black market. That would be their choice. Why would the U.S. give them legal channels?
In a 2012 poll by Mike Bloomberg’s Everytown USA, 76% of American gun owners — including 71% of NRA members — supported banning gun purchases by people on the terror watchlist. Surely, that number has gone up in the wake of Paris.
Americans are reckoning with the terrible new reality that ISIS is extending its reach abroad largely through homegrown adherents.
FBI Director James Comey says the bureau is struggling with terror probes in all 50 states. NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton sees a likelihood that, sooner or later, Islamists on this soil will have their way in blood.
There’s no doubt that plotters are hard at work — with no reason to worry about buying high-capacity assault rifles. They’ve got that locked up just as surely as if a dependable co-conspirator stood ready to deliver a cache of weapons and ammo — because that’s what they’ve got in the NRA.
