Today there are tens of thousands of known or suspected terrorists, most not American citizens, who are prohibited from boarding airplanes by the government’s “no-fly list.”
Today those same people are allowed to walk in to the neighborhood gun store and buy assault rifles and other weapons just like you and me.
Crazy, right?
More than 2,000 suspects on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist have bought weapons in the U.S. in the last decade. Nine out of ten of all suspected terrorists who tried to buy guns in America have legally walked away with the weapon. In 2014 alone, 94 percent of suspected terrorists were able to purchase a gun, 455 in all.
Some lawmakers have spent years trying to do something about it.
The “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act,” was reintroduced after the Paris attacks last fall, but it’s been debated since the Bush administration.
If passed it would end the legal loophole which allows suspected terrorists on the government’s no-fly list to legally buy guns.
You’d think it would be a no-brainer.
Except to the National Rifle Association.
They have fought it, with the help of Republican lawmakers, for years. The NRA argues that if even one law-abiding American was wrongly placed on the list they would lose their Second Amendment rights.
And, of course, their ability to spend cash on a gun.
“The number of Americans on the list of over 700,000 likely doesn’t exceed 10,000,” said Martin Reardon, former chief of the FBI Terrorist Screening Center’s operations branch. “Some innocent people have been wrongly included in the terrorist watch list or the no-fly list, which can affect their lives in ways such as having to go through extra airport security or being stopped from boarding a plane. But for an American to get on that list by accident is harder than people think.”
So even though suspected terrorists can’t board your airline, they can still walk into a gun store and buy the weapon of their choice.
Enter Donald Trump today.
I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2016
Give the presumptive Republican presidential nominee credit. This takes some guts.
To challenge the NRA on anything before the GOP convention is worth noting.
Last December, Trump seemed baffled when made aware that potential terrorists could still buy guns.
“If people are on the watch list or people are sick, you have — this is already covered in the legislation we already have George. It’s already fully covered,” Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. When it was explained to him that was not the case under current law, Trump said, “if we have an enemy of state, I don’t want to give him anything.”
In 2000, when he was eyeing an independent bid for the White House, Trump said he backed a ban on assault weapons and a longer waiting period for gun purchases.
Make no mistake in this campaign, Trump is on solid ground with the NRA. After the shooting in Orlando this weekend, as an example, he suggested that some of the deaths could have been prevented if many of the club goers had been carrying their own guns. That is not a view shared by most law enforcement officials.
Democrats in Congress today are demanding a vote on the bill. Republicans are blocking it. Trump’s own party doesn’t want to touch the issue with the NRA watching their every move carefully before November. But perhaps Trump can walk in and strike a deal with an organization that rarely does any deal making.
They say only Nixon could go to China. Perhaps only Trump can go to the NRA.