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Trump Backs Democrats’ No-Fly List Gun Ban
On Twitter Wednesday morning, Donald Trump endorsed the Senate Democrats’ plan to ban people on the “no fly” list from purchasing guns.
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
During the primaries, the presumptive GOP nominee repeatedly promised to defend Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. On his campaign website Trump states, “The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period.”
Now Trump has reversed himself and backs a plan by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D–NY) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to prevent people who are listed on the shadowy “no fly” list from purchasing any firearms.
Since Senate Democrats first introduced this plan, the NRA has strongly rejected it. “Under the current system, law enforcement is notified every time a person on the list attempts to purchase a firearm,” NRA Director of Public Affairs Jennifer Baker said shortly after the terror attacks in Paris. “Law Enforcement then makes a case by case decision on the appropriate follow-up for each circumstance.”
She added, “the NRA’s only objective is to ensure that Americans who are wrongly on the list are afforded their constitutional right to due process. It is appalling that anti-gun politicians are exploiting the Paris terrorist attacks to push their gun-control agenda and distract from President Obama’s failed foreign policy.”
The Orlando terror attack has again inspired President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other Democrats to push this Trojan horse for gun control. Despite his repeated promises to defend the Second Amendment, Donald Trump agrees with them.
Published in Guns
Be careful of shooting yourself in the foot, though.
If you ignore the process because you like the outcome, you’ll regret having done so when the outcome is one you don’t like.
There are a lot of people on the left who might say the same thing about extremist Christians. I’m not equivocating, obviously, but the law exists for a reason. If you want to carve out exceptions for various things, expect that there may well be an exception carved out for you at some point…
How can someone be too dangerous to be allowed on airplanes and not be too dangerous to be arrested and charged with something?
Oh, yeah? Seems I missed that amendment, somewhere.
Daily Caller: “John McCain’s plan was to force the closing of gun shows, require prior federal approval of anything broadly defined as a gun show….”
Jon Gabriel: Are you voting for John McCain in the Arizona US Senate primary? Hello?
Not explicitly, but certainly protected. Freedom to travel is a fundamental part of liberty. And if the only liberties protected by the bill of rights are those explicitly enumerated, then very little is protected… It is government powers that are enumerated, not individual liberties.
While denial of a weapon purchase has long term damage, denial of air travel can have immediate and devastating damage. ( A loved one is dying 2000 miles away, for instance)
Both are denials of basic rights, and both should be carefully administered.
I don’t disagree, that is kind of what I’m getting at. How can we allow an arbitrary list to prevent basic liberties without due process?
As Brent notes in #26, the information is pretty vague. I don’t see where Trump backs a Schumer/Feinstein plan.
I’m no fan of Trump, but I think we may be jumping to conclusions here.
It’s not such a bad idea in the abstract, the real question is: do you trust the current and all future administrations to implement it fairly?
All it would take is one Tim McVeigh nutjob to shoot up a government building and a future liberal administration might start adding anyone with known ties to a militia, minuteman, or prepper group it didn’t like to the list. Next a nutjob shoots a doctor at an abortion clinic and soon anyone with ties to any pro-life group he was a member of can no longer buy guns.
10th.
edit:
the federal government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the United States Constitution. All remaining powers are reserved for the states or the people.
That’s the nut of the issue.
https://www.aclu.org/infographic/grounded-life-no-fly-list
Well, that didn’t take long.
The constitutionally protected right to travel on an airplane… I’ll look it up:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
… not sure whether you’re considering the interstate commerce clause, here, but that aside, I don’t think an honest argument could be made that the “right to travel” exists on the same plane (pun not intended) as the “right to bear arms.”
If you’re seriously proposing that any actual discussion move forward under that premise, then I offer that such a discussion is going to be fruitless.
If you have as an underlying philosophy that the government ought to lack the authority to create any sort of no-fly-list at all, then I think we’re getting somewhere. But to refer to “the right to travel” as a constitutionally protected right is silliness. Why not make actual arguments rather than resorting to nonsensical ones?
It was a great amendment while it still existed, wasn’t it?
I am actually disappointed at the growth trajectory of this thread.
It is posted by the HEIC and the title includes the three (3) Ricochet key words: Trump, Democrat, Gun.
We should be over 200 by now with a few redactions and somebody thrown in the penalty box.
A great many people — including our own Charles Cooke — have argued that the No Fly List is an abridgment of due process on precisely those grounds and did so when it was the Left that proposed expanding it to gun purchases.
No, what is silliness is pretending that the rights protected by the constitution are limited only to those specifically enumerated. If that is the case, you have no right to walk down the street if some government agency puts you on a list?
I’m kind of surprised that it is questionable to state that the right to life, liberty , and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to travel using modern modes.
If your position is correct, then we really don’t have any rights that the government does not allow us… But the constitution I know declares those rights to come from a higher authority.
No, in politics, in an election year, the “real question” is, are we gonna let the Dems get away with saying “the GOP supports terrorists having guns–they won’t even consider banning people FBI is watching!”
Walking back is about half of what he does.
I don’t know, it was pretty much erased long before I was born. And I’m no spring chicken…
You are misreading what I said.
I am in complete agreement with the notion that the government should be limited in what it may or may not regulate. I would take this to the extreme, arguing that supreme court precedent should be overturned, and that a vast majority of what the federal government does in fact do is actually unconstitutional.
But if you want to be realistic about your arguments, you cannot say that “the right to fly” is a constitutionally protected right in the same way that the “right to bear arms” is a constitutionally protected right. It may well be that the government is (rightly) limited in both cases, but those things derive from different sources, and it is important to understand the difference.
To be super-clear, just yesterday, using the No Fly List to restrict firearms purchases of US citizens who have committed no crime was a leftist position. Today, it’s still a leftist position… that the Republican nominee apparently endorses and wants to talk to the NRA about.
There’re two responses to the Democrats: either agree with them, or explain once again the liberties this nation was built on and the constitutional problems of a “watch” list.
I guess the latter is just too hard for some people these days.
Is the crux of the argument that you don’t have a right to fly but the government doesn’t have the constitutional authority to forbid you from doing so?
Because the right to fly (as opposed to the broader right of freedom of movement) seems like one of the European Human Rights-style positive rights.
Tom, can you clarify the endorsement. I get that Trump is scatter brained about some things, but all I see in this tweet is a meeting not an endorsement of leftist position.
The endorsement may be forthcoming, but I don’t see it here.
He’s a northeastern liberal Republican, what do you expect?
Link please. All I can locate is that Trump is going to talk with the NRA.
I knew I encountered the “right to travel” in my Constitutional Law course. My constitutional law prof, (unlike yours, evidently,)spent some time on it! but just as a quickie refresher, I looked it up on WIki: freedom of movement under US law.
Actually, the right derives from the Privileges and Immunities clause, according to cases cited in this article–but PHenry is right, too, it could be one of those “penumbral” rights, like the right to privacy.
Shorter version:
“Trump fights!”
“Yes, but whom?”
was it leftist because Hillary suggested it? Because the no fly list, as I remember it, was started in relation to the expanded homeland security measures begun by GW Bush? I understand, the left looks for any excuse to attack gun ownership, and few are more opposed to gun control than I.
But that doesn’t mean I want felons and known terror supporters to be able to drop in to the local gun store and stock up. So, the question I’m raising is, if the danger of using the no fly list to prevent terror suspects from getting weapons is that the list is bogus, then the argument should be about fixing the list, not about protecting potential terrorists’ easy access to weapons?
I agree–we should explain! But we’ll never get that far if they can’t even hear us above the cries of “all Republicans want terrorists to have guns!”