The GOP shot down, once again, a proposal that people on terrorist watch lists should not be allowed to buy guns, or explosives. Because freedom!
'The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that investigates issues for Congress, said in a report more than five years ago that from 2004 to 2010, more than 90 percent of the 1,228 individuals on terrorist watch lists who sought to buy guns were allowed to do so.
[…] The NRA and Republicans argue that there are hundreds of thousands of people on terrorist watch lists and that a blanket ban on sales of guns and explosives to such people would be an overly broad prohibition on gun ownership. Referring to the placement of people on the terrorist watch lists, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Feinstein’s bill assumes “that the federal government never makes a mistake … but we all know better.”'
Granted, this not quite all the GOP's fault, as they (or their NRA sponsors) are correct in that government terrorist watch lists are pretty damned crappy, prone to error, and difficult to correct for (as I have tangential experience with).
But I would feel a lot more sanguine about Sen. Cornyn's principled objections if he were therefore fighting a public battle to get those various watch lists cleaned up. Because, in fact, they do have effects beyond gun purchasing. But since that's the only Constitutional Right the NRA is actually concerned with promoting, the rest of those flawed watch list consequences can be conveniently ignored. Because terrorists!
'The National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby allied with Republicans and conservative Democrats, opposes the bill. “The NRA does not want terrorists or dangerous people to have firearms, any suggestion otherwise is offensive and wrong,” spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said in a statement.'
That's deeply reassuring, of course. Does the NRA have an actual proposal to keep "terrorists or dangerous people" from having firearms? Because it sure seems to me that every time someone proposes any method for doing so, the NRA fights tooth and nail and $30 million in contributions per election cycle to make sure it doesn't happen.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the NRA doesn't want terrorists or dangerous people to have firearms … as long as all law-abiding non-terroristic, not-yet-convicted Americans are able to purchase all the ammo and firearms that the NRA's corporate sponsors are able to manufacture.
GOP blocks efforts to deny guns to those on terrorist watch lists
WASHINGTON — At about the time Wednesday that two shooters under investigation for potentially having terrorist ties were gunning down people at a community center in San Bernardino, House Republicans blocked legislation that would help prevent people on U.S. terrorist watch lists from buying firearms legally. Republicans blocked the bill again Thursday, without debate, fending off efforts by Democrats to pass the Denying Firearms and Explosives…
Yes! God is great!
Because clearly the GOP has never heard of "optics." The most rabid parts of their base will agree with whatever they do, and everyone else can go fuck themselves, apparently.
+Brittany Constable optics go on firearms for these folk. That's their version of gun control.