Interesting. [quote=“Huffington Post”]New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s appeal to what he called “common sense” at a congressional hearing Wednesday morning failed to sway two Republican senators who said that giving the government the ability to block the purchase of guns by suspected terrorists would undermine the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.
“Shouldn’t FBI agents have the authority to block sales of guns and explosives to those on the terror watchlists – and deemed too dangerous to fly? I actually believe that they should,” Bloomberg told senators. Federal law currently only allows the government to block guns sales for a very limited number of reasons, and being on that list is not one of them.
[…]
But GOP Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina wouldn’t go along.
Admitting that “at first blush” the bill “seems to be an obvious step that we should take,” Collins said that many people on the FBI’s watchlist don’t belong there. “None of us wants a terrorist to be able to purchase a gun, but neither should we want to infringe upon a Constitutional right of law-abiding Americans,” she said.
Graham described the bill as an instrument of those who would ban guns altogether. “We’re talking about a constitutional right here,” he said, explaining that he could not support a bill that would force “innocent Americans” to “pay the cost of going to court to get their gun rights back.”
Graham wasn’t nearly as concerned about rights when he launched into a disquisition on the treatment of American citizens accused of terrorism. “I am all into national security,” he said. “I want them to stop reading these guys Miranda rights.”[/quote]Potential terrorists won’t have their right to buy weapons infringed, but suspected terrorists aren’t to be read their Miranda rights. As for the right of Hispanic Americans not to be subject to unreasonable harassment by law enforcement officers hunting illegal migrants…
So, weapons – supposedly a means of safeguarding the public against gov’t tyranny – available to all.
Legal safeguards and checks on the power of the police – certainly a safeguard against gov’t power – unsupported and actively railed against.
Post the relevant legislation and let’s look at it. I wouldn’t trust Huffpo to give me the weather, though they do print one of my favorite bloggers from time to time.
Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham are not rock solid conservatives so them holding up something like this makes me suspect it may be due to poorly written legislation rather than keeping terrorists gun free. Considering how much they have screwed up lately, I don’t expect them to get into a bell tower with a rifle.
Bill HR 2159 at Open Congress
You should note that the passages of the bill that have attracted comments by that site’s users deal with the AG’s discretion trumping due process and suspicion trumping the assumption of innocence. On that site, 6% of users support the bill.
I found that site by chasing links in the Huffington Post, which led through this:
[quote]“The Bush Administration supported closing the terror gap, the Obama Administration supports it. Republican pollster Frank Luntz did a poll in December and found that 82% of NRA members support it. There is no good explanation of why Congress has failed to close this gap,” Bloomberg said.
The NRA complains that the authorities given the attorney general are too vague, too non-transparent and too hard to appeal. “H.R. 2159 isn’t about making America safe from terrorists; it’s about giving the federal government new, arbitrary authority to prohibit loyal Americans from exercising their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms. Cloaking it in terms of ‘national security’ doesn’t change that fact.”[/quote]
Is that why? I don’t know.
Thanks for linking Jaboney, that makes a lot more sense, so lets pick it apart and see why 2 moderate members of the Senate are against this.
I think you are correct that being denied the right to buy a gun by the attorney general without recourse nor appeal is the major reason. I have no faith in Eric Holder nor the Obama administration. This isn’t even on the radar of conservative sites yet so it seems kind of like grandstanding by Bloomberg, you know the mayor of New York City who told Couric on national televison that the Times Square bomber probably hates healthcare. The same city that you have to be rich and powerful to even be allowed to own a gun in.
In a nutshell it is dead though, it will be used to fundraise from and motivate the netroots. The NRA will score the vote and in this curent climate the democrats have enough problems.
As far as the Frank Luntz poll, I’d love to see the questions that gave a 82% support rate to the bill. I’m sure if it was phrased as “Do you support a billl that will allow Attorney General Eric Holder deny people he deems terrorists the right to buy a gun?” The approval rating would of dropped like a rock.
“If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything. There is no evidence here of a conspiracy, there is no evidence that it’s tied into anything else. It looks like an amateurish job done by at least one person.”
He’s saying the motivation could have been anything, and threw out a few random examples of possible motives. He’s not saying he “probably hates healthcare.”
[quote=“Okami”]Thanks for linking Jaboney, that makes a lot more sense, so lets pick it apart and see why 2 moderate members of the Senate are against this.
I think you are correct that being denied the right to buy a gun by the attorney general without recourse nor appeal is the major reason. I have no faith in Eric Holder nor the Obama administration. [/quote]
But you do have faith in the discretion and judgment of hundreds/thousands of police in Arizona not to abuse the powers and mandate they’ve been given?
[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“Okami”]Thanks for linking Jaboney, that makes a lot more sense, so lets pick it apart and see why 2 moderate members of the Senate are against this.
I think you are correct that being denied the right to buy a gun by the attorney general without recourse nor appeal is the major reason. I have no faith in Eric Holder nor the Obama administration. [/quote]
But you do have faith in the discretion and judgment of hundreds/thousands of police in Arizona not to abuse the powers and mandate they’ve been given?[/quote]Having lived in Arizona and considering 70% of the state supports the bill, yes I have a lot of faith in the police. If you don’t like you town then you move or vote the guy out. If you racially profile or randomly stop hispanics, then that person you stopped has just won the fricken lottery. No police officer wants a racial profiling incident on his record. it would be a career killer. Even Sheriff Joe, a man I don’t necessarily like, has huge support.
Chris, stay on topic or use a pm. FFS, try to find the words: Muslim, jihad or islam in any of the news pieces on the guy who made the bomb.
In fairness, though I certainly wouldn’t agree with this position, there is a contingent of legal scholars out there that believe Miranda is a court made rule, rather than a constitutional requirement. As Miranda has become more established in the public’s mind, this group has shrunk, but at the time Miranda was passed it was by no means clear that it was a constitutional requirement.
Like I said, I don’t agree with Ms Graham, but if she doesn’t believe Miranda to be constitutionally required she isn’t necessarily advocating the constitution in one case while ignoring it in another.
Also, like someone said, it’s Huffington Post. When they talk about conservatives I give them about as much credance as I would Fox talking about a liberal.
We need to be clear about the context of this quote. Joe Lieberman is talking about stripping citizenship rights for suspected terrorists…Peter King, Lindsey Graham, and others are talking about not reading Miranda rights to American citizens who are suspected as terrorists. In that context, to be in favor of allowing those same people to buy guns is outrageous. I don’t know how Lindsey Graham and others like him can even say this with a straight face.
The reading of Miranda rights merely informs the arrested individual of certain rights suspects automatically have upon arrest, guaranteed by the 5th and 6th amendments of the Constitution.
The reading does not grant rights. But failure to read Miranda rights can lead to a case being dismissed on a technicality. Surely those on the right don’t want this guy to be released on a technicality?
The presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the right to remain silent, and the right to legal representation lie at the very heart of the US justice system.
The same city that you have to be rich and powerful to even be allowed to own a gun in.