On Terrorist Watch List, but Allowed to Buy Guns

On Terrorist Watch List, but Allowed to Buy Guns

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 20, 2009


WASHINGTON — People on the government’s terrorist watch list tried to buy guns nearly 1,000 times in the last five years, and federal authorities cleared the purchases 9 times out of 10 because they had no legal way to stop them, according to a new government report.

In one case, a person on the list was able to buy more than 50 pounds of explosives.

The new statistics, compiled in a report from the Government Accountability Office that is scheduled for public release next week, draw attention to an odd divergence in federal law: people placed on the government’s terrorist watch list can be stopped from getting on a plane or getting a visa, but they cannot be stopped from buying a gun.

Gun purchases must be approved unless federal officials can find some other disqualification of the would-be buyer, like being a felon, an illegal immigrant or a drug addict.

“This is a glaring omission, and it’s a security issue,” Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat who requested the study, said in an interview.

Mr. Lautenberg plans to introduce legislation on Monday that would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales to people on terror watch lists.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/us/politics/20watch.html?ref=us

If so, it's ridiculously bloated, and that's why law enforcement ignores it. Which really means it's a pointless exercise that's just fooling people into thinking we're safer with it.

Where most people don't even know that their on it, and the average person has little means of getting off of it, once they do find out they are on it...

Even Ted Kennedy found himself tangled up in it, And it is used to restrict a civil rights??? Very Nice.. Remember all the babies, held at airports because of it??

I was against the "No Fly" list when the Rupukes started this crap, and I am still against it.

This Lautenberg, needs to stop playing Sara Brady (R) and Paul Helmke (R) tune.

I cannot belive we have DEMOCRATS, YELLING "TERRA TERRA TERRA"

God, he almost sounds like McSame...

it's the legal requirement to deprive someone of their rights.

Or at least it should be.

No search or seizure without a warrant.

No imprisonment without a trial.

No disarmament without showing mental inability, restraining order, or arrest / conviction.

Pretty basic constitutional stuff.

that allows people on the watch list to contest the ruling. From my understanding, it doesn't.



Fortunately for Ted, he has the power and the status to get his name taken off the list. The average person may find this difficult if not impossible. If an average individual's name ends up on the list in mistake, he is shit out of luck.

The rich are better that you. Be suspicious of your neighbors. Different is bad. Without violence, all would be chaos. Too much liberty is dangerous. Fear the curious mind.

I don't think George Orwell intended his books to be instruction manuals, but such is life.

It was a bad idea to begin with, and serves no useful purpose.

Roll back the patriot act, roll back this police state secret list crap.

That's just wrong. He should introduce legislation to get innocent people off the watch list, not compound the injustice of being on the list without legal process. What a sad excuse for a Democrat.

Those two-year-old terrorists are the worst...