Poli-ticks

Congressional Republicans look dumb and dumber

Arlene Violet
Posted 6/29/16

ITEM: Warning labels on cigarettes are stupid. Some people smoke and never develop lung cancer. ITEM: E-verify is dumb. Some people make it on the list that aren’t here illegally. ITEM: The FDA …

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Poli-ticks

Congressional Republicans look dumb and dumber

Posted

ITEM: Warning labels on cigarettes are stupid. Some people smoke and never develop lung cancer.

ITEM: E-verify is dumb. Some people make it on the list that aren’t here illegally.

ITEM: The FDA should be abolished. The overwhelming majority of people don’t contract e coli.

ITEM: People on terrorist lists should have access to guns since the list could mistakenly have somebody on it that is law-abiding.

ITEM: Ditto for no-fly lists.

Query: Just how smart are the above positions? In the case of Republican senators there should be no prohibition for those on a terrorist watch list from securing any legal weapon after 72 hours. The sale would only be banned after a prosecutor convinced a judge that the would-be buyer was involved in terrorism. How idiotic can they be? Anyone with even the remotest knowledge of the criminal justice system knows that it is virtually impossible to make such a case during that timeline.

The terrorist watch list has close to 1 million people on it but fewer than 5000 Americans or legal residents are on the tally. The narrower no-fly list has 81,000, names the overwhelming majority of whom are not U.S. citizens or legal residents. This is not a wholesale block. Yet, the G-O-P (spelled N-R-A) eschews any reasonable restrictions for those whose activities are being monitored for terrorist-related activities.

The extremism in this country is frightening. Donald Trump, in his book, "The America We Deserve", wanted to ban all assault weapons and advocated a longer waiting period to purchase a gun. Now, he wants guys and gals in bars slinging pistols after their third martini so they can pop an attacker between the eyes. His recent argument is very similar to those yahoos (yes, yahoos) who want everybody armed at schools, church etc., to counterbalance an attack. Pistol Packin’ Mama is surely a match for AR-15 assailant intent on killing the children or congregation so let’s not curb his access to assault weapons.

Or is she? TIME (June 21, 2016) magazine broke down data on the gun laws and culture of 10 countries. U.S. gun ownership is an anomaly with ownership at 270 million guns or 88.8 guns per 100 people. Australia had 15 guns per 100 people and India 4.2 per 100. Is this country safer than those places? Other than a few instances of thwarting crime one would expect the numbers to be huge given the gun ownership in this country.

The answer is far simpler than arming everybody. It is common sense to bar suspected terrorists from securing guns. Steps like barring capital crimes perpetrators and mentally certifiable folks from purchasing a weapon are steps in the right direction. Online purchases should not be exempt from background checks for these categories as well.

Gun enthusiasts will see even these modest steps as an erosion of the second amendment but it’s pretty hard to make that argument when folks here possess 270 million firearms and over 8 million of them are military style rifles. Hysteria rules, as shall be evident from the response to this column. The fact is that the NRA protects its real constituency, i.e. the gun dealers, by wrapping its mission with rhetoric about the Second Amendment. Anyone who is blind enough to allow terrorist suspects to acquire weapons is unpatriotic—notwithstanding all the diversionary brouhaha about protecting the Second Amendment.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.

Arlene Violet

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