Although gun control (or lack thereof) has absolutely nothing to do with the Orlando terror attack, Democrats are seizing the opportunity to get it passed nonetheless. They are joined by Donald Trump.
Is there any part of the Republican base The Donald won’t turn his back on?
Case in point? This tweet from the billionaire businessman/presumed Republican presidential nominee:
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
As The Washington Free Beacon explains, this basically means he has caved on gun control:
He has also tweeted his support for the proposal (backed by Barack Obama) to take away the right to buy a gun for those on government watch lists. For those trying to figure out what this means: it means he has caved on gun control. So much for the argument that he’s better than Hillary on Constitutional issues that go before the Supreme Court.
Of course Trump’s sycophants immediately took to Twitter to defend his latest “plans,” the idea being that this policy would’ve prevented the horrible terror attack in Orlando. There’s just one problem with that: it wouldn’t have.
We also know that Mateen was actually once on a terrorist watch list, then taken off of it. The FBI interviewed him twice, in 2013 and 2014, because of his stated sympathies with Islamist extremists and contacts with an American who later died in a suicide bombing in Syria.
What’s more, Erick Ericksen adds that it’s a horrible idea even if it would’ve prevented this specific attack:
Banning people on the terror watch list and no fly list are terrible ideas because the second amendment is a fundamental right. The Republicans proposed a plan last year killed by Democrats that would trigger a probable cause hearing if someone was flagged, but never endorsed an outright prohibition on American citizens owning guns when it could be a government screw up.
Numerous people have been put on the no fly list, for example, who do not deserve to be there. They include former Senator Ted Kennedy and Fox News contributor Steve Hayes. Not only do people get on the list inappropriately, but it is a difficult process to get off the list.
As Benjamin Franklin put it rather succinctly more than 200 years ago:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Naturally, it’s important for the government to protect its people, but the overriding principle behind the American experiment is freedom, not security. The Second Amendment is clear on the right of the American people to buy guns: this right “shall not be infringed.”
Sadly, Republicans have a presidential nominee who is a Democrat in all but name and who, therefore, hasn’t seen a gun control measure he didn’t like. Give the man the presidency and it’ll be the Republican Party, rather than the Democrats, that will end up banning guns.
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