In other words, requiring everybody who buys a gun to first submit to a background check is tantamount to surrendering to the terrorists and limiting the rights of law-abiding Americans?Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said tightening gun laws to address the threat would be to surrender to terrorists at the expense of Americans' rights.
“We’ve seen time and again that terrorists will use anything, including our own rights and freedoms, to plot attacks against innocent Americans,” Smith said in an email. “But simply because terrorists abuse our liberties doesn’t mean that we should limit the rights of law-abiding Americans. On the contrary, to limit our rights is to give in to terrorists and the fear they try to spread.”
I wish someone would explain that to me.
Please leave a comment.
We are at far greater risk from home grown terrorists and non-islamic terrorists than we are from al Quaeda. That would include the right wing gun nuts in militias who are prepared to use their firearms to overthrow our democratically elected government.
ReplyDeleteIt was the right that objected to preventing people on the terrorist watch list from being barred from buying either firearms or explosives.
While it is true that there are some people who shouldn't be on that watchlist......wouldn't it be better to bar those who do belong on it from buying weapons (or explosives) and CLEAN UP the watchlist? But no, you won't find Lamar Smith advocating for THAT. He'd rather support the funding for endless, pointless, useless radicalizing islam hearing witch hunts by his right wing islamophobe colleagues. The fringe of his own political base are a greater danger than moslems.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications
If you believe that a bunch of guys that drink beer on weekends and have to wrap two pistol belts around their waste are a bigger threat than islamic terrorists, then you are not following world events very well.
ReplyDeleteI don't worry much about weekend militia nuts that can't plan anything past the ramblings on their keyboards. But I do worry about a Beslan type assault on our schools by islamic terrorists that prefer to kill children. And those guys do not buy their guns at Wal-Mart and have background checks done first.
What I believe FWM is that the domestically grown, non-Islamic terrorists are statistically a greater threat than the Islamic terrorists are.
ReplyDeleteThe number of reports which confirms that is pretty substantial.
I have a big problem worrying over much about guys who fail successfully to light their shoes on fire, or blow up their own balls, succeeding only in lighting their tidy whities on fire. (If you need a comparison to guys drinking beer wearing guns.)
Both falsely portray the threats.
Silly Lamar Smith is simply jumping up and down on the Isalmophobia panic button to gin up predictable hysteria on the right.
Lets get fact based for a change shall we? I notice you don't disagree with cleaning up the no-fly list and then banning those who belong on the list from either buying guns or explosives. There are plenty of Americans who need to be prevented from attacking the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness - i.e. the freedom(no 's') of the rest of us Americans.
The master Lamar is serving is money from special interests, not the people of the United States, not the Constitution.
Dog Gone - It is pretty simple - try these terrorists in court for the crimes they have committed and then you can restrict their rights as allowed by law. No trial equals no restrictions in someone's rights. It is the basis of our system of law that you are innocent until proven guilty. Just having some government official putting your name on a list is not a basis for restricting your rights.
ReplyDeleteEgyptian terror leader Al-Zawahri was named the new leader of al Qaeda this week. He has vowed to get even with the U.S. for dealing with their poster boy Bin Laden. Also, as Bin Laden's replacement, he needs to make his bones.
ReplyDeleteIslamic terrorists kill children. Homegrown terrorists are that in name only. They tend to kill Bud Lites, type stupid diatribes about black helicopters on their internets then go back to their government jobs on Monday.
As far as the watchlist, I am against denying any basic right to anyone just because they are on double secret probation. If they are really convicted terrorists, then they should be in jail and if they are not, they are already prohibited persons by current law.
FWM, they are on a watchlist because they are a danger if they fly because of reason to believe they have connections to terrorists.
ReplyDeleteIf they cant fly because of that, I don't think they should be buying guns and explosives either. There is a reasonable belief they are a danger.
"wouldn't it be better to bar those who do belong on it from buying weapons (or explosives) and CLEAN UP the watchlist?"
ReplyDeleteYou put too much undeserved faith in government. The government is incompetent at best and downright dangerous at worst. I don't trust them to clean up dog droppings let alone any secret watchlist.
And how are we supposed to know it's been cleaned up if we can't even see if we're on it? Something tells me you didn't think that part through.
If they are such a danger, why then are they not locked up? Why do we let them walk among us unchallenged? Why do we let them commit their acts of terror without prosecution?
ReplyDelete"What I believe FWM is that the domestically grown, non-Islamic terrorists are statistically a greater threat than the Islamic terrorists are."
ReplyDeleteJust looking at the past 20 years of American history, the body count of the Islamic terrorist attacks outnumbers the body count of domestic terrorist attacks by a factor of 10.
So statistically, you are wrong.
Dog gone: “they are on a watchlist because they are a danger if they fly because of reason to believe they have connections to terrorists. If they cant fly because of that, I don't think they should be buying guns and explosives either.”
ReplyDeleteWatchlist “terrorists” are allowed to fly, they just get extra screening. It is the “no-fly” list which is a very small subset of the watchlist that is not allowed to board an airplane. It is orders of magnitude smaller- more like hundreds/thousands of names as opposed to millions. Based on what you said above, would you change your stance to only deny gun purchases to the “no-fly” list and allow the rest of the watchlist to be covered under NICS checks?
MacVeigh is still numero uno, don't forget. Home grown and NRA influenced.
ReplyDelete"Home grown and NRA influenced."
ReplyDeleteYou are starting to sound like Jade again--if he ever owned a gun, he must be an NRA member or influenced by them. Next week you will say the NRA is a small organization that doesn't have any real influence.
BTW, McVeigh was not an NRA member.
I'm confused, is this one from this morning "homegrown" too?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/17/suspicious-vehicle-shuts-down-several-major-roads-near-pentagon/
Yep, those home-grown guys must be in stealth mode compared to the actual threats our nation is receiving.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/16/feds-send-alert-after-al-qaeda-linked-site-posts-hit-list-us-targets/
McVeigh killed 168 in his attack. The Muslim radicals killed 2752 in their attack on the World Trade Center.
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.cnn.com/2003-10-29/us/wtc.deaths_1_death-toll-world-trade-center-names?_s=PM:US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing
So 168 * 10 = 1,680 which is less than 2752. So Aztec you are wrong, it is more like 16 times higher.
Can any of you even find an example of a "home-grown" non-muslim terror attack on this country in the last 10 years?
ReplyDeleteI don't mean calling some criminal that had a fight with local cops a terrorist either. I mean an outright organized terrorist attack on innocent targets for the sake of a political cause?
Seriously, if "statistically" they are a bigger threat than al Qaeda, you should be able to come up with some recent examples.
Jim, You're right of course. Timothy is only numero uno among the "home grown" terrorists. Do you have any trouble understanding what we mean by that like FWM does?
ReplyDeletemike - you cited McVeigh as a sample of why homegrown non Muslim terrorist were more of a threat to us than Muslim terrorists. I am simply saying that by the body count (as referenced by Aztec) that you are wrong. The Muslim terrorist over the last 20 years has been much more than a 10 times threat as homegrown terrorists.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, while McVeigh was the worst of the homegrown terrorists, he is by no means the worst terrorist to strike at America.
P.S. did McVeigh even use a gun in commiting his terrorsit acts?
"Do you have any trouble understanding what we mean by that like FWM does?"
ReplyDeleteI don't have any problem understanding that McVeigh was a nutjob terroist that committed a terrorist act and killed a lot of people over 15 years ago. He was executed for it too. I am simply asking that your provide some recent examples of home-grown non-muslim terrorists since you claim the claim was they are statistically for of a threat.
No they're not MORE of a threat. At least not by the scoreboard we've compiled so far.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to say they are MORE of a threat.
Sorry for the confusion.