2nd Amendment Terrorists

I recently learned of a GAO report stating that over 1,000 people on the Terrorist Watch List have attempted to buy guns or explosives over the past 5 years, with a 90% success rate. Yes, being on the list will stop you from being able to board a plane or get a visa, but it won't keep you from buying a gun.

This is an appalling policy and it must be ended.

Don't get ahead of me here - it's not what you might think. True, I am generally anti-gun - or at least, pro-sane gun control. Generally. But my problem here isn't that people on the TWL can buy guns.

It is that the TWL exists at all. To refresh your memory, this is a secret list compiled by some secretive organization in our government that denies certain basic liberties to citizens who are suspected of having some relationship with terrorists. That the list is not well compiled is well known - the most publicized example was when Senator Ted Kennedy was not allowed to board a commercial airline because he was mistakenly on the list. There have been many other examples of "innocent" people who happened to have similar names to "suspected terrorists" or who had some tenuous relationship to such people.

But even if the list were perfect - even if it adhered to whatever standard it supposedly meets, even if every name on the list was someone who was suspected of engaging in terrorist activities, the whole concept of such a list is abhorrent in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. It is also, I am almost certain, unconstitutional.

If a citizen of the United States is suspected of a crime, evidence should be gathered and he should be charged and tried. If he is suspected of planning a crime, the FBI or CIA or other appropriate agencies should watch him, monitor him, do what is necessary within the limits placed on them by the constitution to respect his rights. But under no circumstances should a completely unaccountable government agency be allowed to decide that a free citizen is a "suspect" and preemptively limit his civil rights to travel - or for that matter, to legally purchase a firearm. The right to be treated as innocent til proven guilty, to face ones accusers openly, to be secure in ones privacy, to be free of government interference in normal daily life - these rights are ultimately more important than the threat of some rogue terrorist. For if we lose them, we've already lost what we are supposed to be defending. Not cars or McMansions or planes or even individual lives.

When the principles and ideals on which this once great nation were founded - even if they were imperfectly followed - are tossed aside out of fear and cowardice and lust for power, we have failed. We should instead be striving to build on the strength of the idealistic foundation that has carried us so far.