865 Times
By Cliff Schecter Tuesday Nov 24, 2009 7:00pmThat is the number of times suspected terrorists, those on actual watch lists, successfully bought guns or explosives in the good ole US of A over the past five years. Why? Because of the Terror Gap. That is the space in our law created by right wingers with celery-stalks-for-brain-stems, bed-wetting Blue Dogs, and neglectful progressives that allows those on watch lists to pass background checks when purchasing weaponry that kills. You can't get on a plane--but you can buy a freakin' explosive.
Even Rahm agrees! (or at least he did):
Remember, conservatives are in a corner shivering over the prospect of KSM being tried in New York, but if a member of Al Qaeda buys a cache of guns the FBI won't know about it and the any background information given when purchasing said weapons is destroyed faster than you can say Nidal Malik Hasan or Eric Rudolph. Now that seems just downright crafty!
Learn more about how you can close the Terror Gap, so that our laws to protect the homeland make just a modicum of sense.
Full Disclosure: I happily advise Mayors Against Illegal Guns
Login or Register to post comments.
Thanks for addressing the subject and looking for solutions.
This is just plain extra-crispy crazy.
Please explain why it is "crazy" that individuals who have been placed upon unreliable lists that exist with neither oversight nor due process are not legally prohibited from obtaining firearms.
simply ignored the fact that GOP Terrorists exist.
I can only imagine this watch list is as thoroughly researched as the no fly list right? right??
What a jerk. Ted Kennedy was on the no fly list and nearly a million others who do not belong either. When are these tiny-brained DLC jerks like Rahm Emanuel and his underling Barak Obama going to smarten up and start framing the debate themselves and throw away that phony war on terror crap that was spoon fed us by the last administration? Oh, I think I answered my own question. Never. Not as long as there is virtually no difference between the two "viable" parties and the fear card works so well to keep us in line.
Is anyone else sick of that word viable yet? How many more decades and how many more pre-packaged and phony presidential campaigns do we have to endure before we can expect legitimate representation for the citizens of this country?
forget about James Robinson, he's a retired air national guard brigadier general who is authorized by the TSA to carry when he's a pilot, and he's on the list also.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/19/tsa.watch.li...
Or the Air Marshalls that have been stopped from boarding the planes they are supposed to protect.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/01/dhs-grou...
"celery-stalks-for-brain-stems, bed-wetting Blue Dogs, and neglectful progressives"
"When are these tiny-brained DLC jerks like Rahm Emanuel and his underling Barak Obama going to smarten up and start framing the debate themselves"
Sorry to correct your poorly written opinion piece, but ORDINARY CITIZENS CANNOT BUY EXPLOSIVES WITH SIMPLE PURCHASE PERMITS!
They are in the same class as fully automatic weapons, good luck trying to get either.
Actually, it's not that hard to get a Low Explosive User's Permit, especially if you just want one that does not include on-site storage provisions. You needed one for a while to buy high power model rocket motors, although that is no longer true since the BATFE lost the court fight over their power to regulate them.
it's not really all that hard to get class 3 firearms and devices(full-auto/silencers/aow/short barreled shotguns/rifles) just time consuming(6mo to a year and perhaps longer) and expensive $200 for the tax stamp except for aow then its $5 but there is a $200 manufacturing fee for them, plus the cost of the item.
And there are some explosives that you do not need a license for at all, commercially made black powder in quantities under 50lbs, gun powder and tannerite(a form of black powder) just off the top of my head. I think there are a couple others. Along with such fun non-explosive things such as napalm and thermite.
A Class III requires the signature of your local chief law enforcement officer, and it's entirely up to their discretion whether or not they give it to you. Many won't. Also, it gives the BATFE the right to inspect the weapons (i.e. search your house) any time they damn well please. A storage LEUP has the same effect, but a non-storage one does not.
Also, a LEUP is not required for propellant-actuated devices (PADs), since they are not intended to explode. The Tripoli/NAR license against the BATFE was about whether or not model rocket motors were explosives or PADs.
easily get around the chief law enforcement officer if he's anti gun, just form a trust. They don't need the signature it goes straight to the BATFE.
And it does not give the BATFE the power to search your house without a warrant. If you have a dealers license they are allowed to inspect your place of business or a Curio and Relics license they can inspect your books and firearms that were obtained and traded under that license.
High-Nitrogen Fertilizer and diesel fuel make a VERY powerful explosive, and you don't need permits to buy either.
That doesn't work with commercially obtained fertilizer without significant processing. The pellets are coated with a thin layer of clay to prevent caking... which coincidentally makes them unsuitable for producing ANFO. I have heard you can get rid of it by dissolving the pellets in water and floating off the clay, then re-crystallizing it. But no amount of sane, reasonable regulation (i.e. not utterly crippling to legitimate chemical users) is going to prevent someone with the time, skill, and patience to do that from manufacturing explosives.
Also, initiating such compositions is not trivial -- it requires a large and powerful initiating charge.
ETA: I think stinks and bangs are awesome, and I'm a huge geek. Therefore, I know this shite.
Why not start a petition to force an investigation into the practices of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, et. al. & if they are found doing something illegal they should be tried & sent to prison for the rest of their lives?
Better yet, why not start a petition calling for the dismantling of "Homeland Security" as well?
...a million people on the terror watch list? (who wont find out about it until they try to get on a plane)?
I got no objections to preventing "terrists" from buying guns but...
...what about due process?
No American can be deprived of life liberty or property without it!
...or so I thought.
Due Process? That was thrown out by G. Bush, and unfortunately the present administration hasn't done much to restore it, except if you are a terrorist, in which case they'll give you a trial in New York with all the trimmings.
You want to impose further burdens on the tens of thousands of innocent people who are placed on these phony watch list with no due process and no chance of clearing their names?
can have a chance of clearing your name off the list. But there is a couple of problems with it, one of the biggest is that they aren't required to tell you why your on it, so its kinda hard to prove that you shouldn't be on it.
...if I'm on Janet Napolitano's "little watch list"
(I got a Ron Paul "end the fed" bumpersticker on my truck so I'm a little worried if you know what I mean...)
everytime I call the "department of homeland security" ...they laugh at me and hang up! (but I have resolve!) so...
...tomorrow I'm going to try to purchase a case of dynamite.
I'm gonna find out if I'm on that list...(one way or another dammit')
...and I urge every American to do the same!
p.s. If anyone else is curious and doesn't like the dynamite idea...try getting a passport and a ticket to Hyderabad Pakistan. (you'll know soon after that)
if there was any evidence whatever that the watch list(s) meant *ANYTHING*. The watch list is nothing but feel-bad security theater from the Bushies and ought to be done away with forthwith. It does nothing except cause enormous headaches for the millions of innocent people who have done nothing more sinister than happen to share a name with someone who annoyed someone at DHS.
Come on, there aren't that many real AQ-related people in the U.S..
Instead, there are that many suspects - and I recall reports about innocent people getting on a suspect list for no good reason.
Besides; the real terrorists wouldn't buy a gun officially - and could easily guy one unofficially if tit was forbidden to buy one officially.
A friend of mine is on it because he has a very common Irish name... which he happens to share with some old Provisional IRA knucklehead twice his age.
He has (or had) a LEUP, too -- so he could buy model rocket motors.
'Homeland' he says. like 'Fatherland' perhaps.
It is that decidedly Naziesque ring to it. It always has, that was the point.
The 'laws' to protect the 'Homeland' make sense to a Nazi, that is where they came from.
And you take the ball of shit and try to run with it.
sheeshza…
The Axis of Errors: Larry, Rahm and Timmy!
You all know for a FACT that 90% of those "Watch Lists" are pure bullshit, that there are little kids, grannies, thousands of persons with "similar names", etc., on those "watch lists", which is something you have been bitching about for YEARS...so before you start blathering about all those "terrorists" on the watch lists, you might just want to ask yourself how much you are EXAGGERATING!
Only 90%? You're giving them way more credit than they deserve.
Login or Register to post comments.