USA – -(Ammoland.com)-The biggest threat in Congress continues to be schemes to strip those on various secret terrorist watch lists of their gun rights without any due process.
Before we discuss this we want to be clear.
The Utah Shooting Sports Council is opposed to terrorists getting guns. However, a terrorist and someone on a terrorist watch list are two different things. As we stated in our previous alert the late Senator Ted Kennedy was on the “No Fly List” and he was not a terrorist (Chappaquiddick notwithstanding).
Any amendment that seeks to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists must be aimed at terrorists, not simply people on a list. It must respect the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment’s right of due process.
Evidence needs to be presented to a judge and a judicial ruling must be issued for someone to be stripped of their civil rights. Additionally someone who loses their gun rights in such a manner must have the evidence made available to them and there needs to be a easy and readily available means to contest the loss of those rights.
The two amendments proposed by anti-gun Democrats in the Senate last week had none of these provisions. There were however two other amendments that offered due process protections and the Democrats rejected them both. This is because these amendments are not about stopping terrorism they are about gun control. The Democrats know that even a total gun ban would not stop a terrorist from getting a gun in the U.S. anymore than it did in Paris. If the gun banners can get a law passed allowing a group of people (up to one million people on the Terrorist Watch List or one hundred thousand on the no fly list) stripped of their civil rights with no due process they can then use that precedent to create other lists.
The problems with these two amendments extend well beyond gun rights. Even the anti-gun American Civil Liberties Union opposed these two amendments. We suggest you read their opposition to these bills at the following link. From a civil liberties standpoint these amendments are more chilling than we can go into in this alert.
ACLU opposition to gun control amendments.
If the gun control lobby gets their wish and the government can strip people on a lists of their gun rights with no due process then the precedent will be set that such behavior is ok. Next will be calls to have a watch list for groups such as gangs, then it will be anyone who has ever visited a mental health professional. Eventually it will be anyone who posts anything online that can be deemed “hate speech.” If this sounds far fetched, one has only to look to the recent executive action of President Obama. He has stripped away the gun rights of over 100,000 disabled veterans by declaring them mentally defective and therefore ineligible to own a firearm simply because they have chosen to have someone handle their financial affairs.
The Utah Shooting Sports Council believes that the current gun control debate in Congress is simply a distraction from President Obama’s failed policy on terrorism and any of the proposals presented so far will do nothing to stop a determined killer. If Congress is to do anything useful related to guns and terrorism, we believe they should pass national concealed carry reciprocity. As we learned in Chicago and Upper Darby, PA the best way to stop a mass shooting is to shoot back.
About Utah Shooting Sports Council:
The Utah Shooting Sports Council represents the citizens of Utah who safely and legally own and use firearms, exercising rights guaranteed under both the United States and Utah constitutions. Visit: https://utahshootingsportscouncil.org/