just like the helms-rayguns horror story preceding, this one is about fear.

the conservatives dont trust anyone -- especially anyone in the government (perhaps they know enough about themselves as government reps to know they shouldnt be trusted, but whatever, they dont trust anyone, esp gov peeps).

that;s why conservatives hafta have untraceable guns -- so they can be ready to kill the people they dont trust "should it ever prove necessary."

and that is why we cant have a decent society in this country. lack of trust and a fearfulness so great that untraceable weapons are the best security many people can think of.

whatta country!

As the gun lobby has drummed into us for years, guns don't kill people, people do. But the Tiahrt amendment protects terrorists and non-terrorists alike. In effect, the Tiahrt amendment provides a screen for terrorists and hinders the police and FBI from doing their jobs.

It's another indication of the irrelevancy of modern conservatism -- it just doesn't explain reality. Rooted in 18th century industrialism, and maybe even feudalism, modern conservatism isn't able to adapt to changing conditions on the ground. Republican impudence simply compounds the problem.

"One of the problems is that the law sometimes restricts you in what you can do."

While I'm sympathetic that gun records aren't readily available for terrorist suspects, I'm still glad that the law sometimes restricts what the authorities can do.

Any one who uses a gun to kill another humen when it is not clear self defence should be considered a terrorist, period. That the gun lobby can have such total control over the repubs and a fair number of dems is insane. Any responsible gun owner should want sensible laws that keep guns out of the hands of those who wish to do harm to others. Or those who are mentally ill, being watched for terrorist activities or any number of things that should disqualify you from purchesing a gun. That so many are so fearful of anykind of gun laws really make me wonder just what is it that they fear. That you would be on a no fly list yet free to purches any number or kind of gun boggles my mind. What a country indeed

Meets or exceeds your expectations of a 3rd world country?

Meets.

The NRA has much to answer for. They put forth the proposition "Got a problem? Getta gun!" This is their attitude to all problems, which includes killing federal officers. I have no beef with hunters or someone who can prove a gun is needed for protection. But, the fact the NRA has fought registration and mandatory training as long as they have is simply criminal. They have done more to sanction illegal gun use than any other organization.

It Trumps Voting

Because of the Bill of Rights, owning a gun is considered an American right, just like voting. Flying on an airplane, on the other hand, is just a privilege, one which Americans in 36 states will be denied as of Jan. 1, 2010, unless they have a valid, current passport, because their drivers licenses will no longer be considered adequate ID. But enough about me...

The Second Amendment is generally considered to define an individual right to possess a firearm. It's time to re-evaluate this. Why have Americans been so eager to give up their rights to free speech, free assembly, habeous corpus, etc, etc, yet somehow cling to this one? Have we been conditioned to believe that, with gun in hand, we can shoot our way back to the other rights?

I doubt that any law would have made a difference in this case. After all the purchaser was an officer in the Army with no record and no reasons to suspect he would be a mass murderer. His connections to known terror suspects was not considered important by the various authorities until it was too late.

It is highly doubtful that even if all the information was available to someone in authority that the connection would be made in a timely fashion due to the overwhelming amount of information that has to be processed. For that to happen there would have to be Orwellian style oversight and even the Patriot Act doesn't allow for that. (And there is a report that the million cameras in London are not working out as well as they thought due to the boredom factor of the observers. There is too much noise in the system.)

It is great to be a Monday morning quarterback about this event, but the laws proposed would have not stopped the shootings from happening, MAJ Nadal would have simply found another way to get a weapon.

Also, how many people are on a flight watch list now that are not in any way a terrorist? Plenty if the anecdotes are to believed. Such a list would a) be secret and b) not subject to review and c) be used for all sorts of things other than oversight. (As I mentioned above, being a felon does not seem to be an impediment to criminals when they buy or steal guns. The only solution is a total ban on guns and even then that doesn't seem to deter a terrorist.)

"Freedom is not free!!! This is the price we pay!!!"

Gag a maggot.

"being a felon does not seem to be an impediment to criminals when they buy or steal guns."

Being a felon does not seem to be an impediment to criminals when they rape, rob or steal. Accordingly, we should not bother with laws against rape, robbery or theft, as they cannot prevent criminals from committing these crimes.

Smarter trolls, please.

The second amendment 'right' to possess a firearm has withstood the onslaught against the rights that truly make us free because 1) the NRA threatens and/or bribes enough of our elected 'representatives' to ensure that they act against the interests of their constitutents and the rest of the country; and 2) rural and southern states, which are populated by, I am sad to say, a lot of people who are not that bright, have a disproportionate influence in the Congress.

Thanks Todd, that was some great ammendment...
I'm sure Guns Galore thanks you too.

Of course, the only solution anyone will seriously consider would be to register Muslims, not guns.

There's no greater peril than a soldier with a gun...

More seriously, this blog entry makes very little sense on the face of it. It's assumed that somehow knowledge of the purchase of a gun would have made the FBI aware that there's a problem. If this was a country in which buying guns wasn't a routine thing done by people who want them for anything from self defense to target practice, then that might, kinda, sorta, make some sort of sense, but in this case it doesn't.

The argument especially doesn't make sense because it seems to me that members of the military, being exposed to and trained in the use of the things in much greater numbers than average, are more likely to be interested in guns and more likely to want one.

What this entry does do, however, is feed into the stereotype that liberals consider guns inherently dubious and gun owners inherently untrustworthy. Knock it off Steve, you're smarter than this. The last thing we need is an entirely unnecessary expansion of government powers on gun issues that'll not have any effect on reducing crime, but will, ultimately, continue to push legal gun owners into the hands of the extreme right.

Smarter trolls, please.

It was not a troll. I simply stated that because Nadal was an army officer (hence assumed to be a patriot and not a terrorist) that almost any law other than a total ban would have been ineffective. In addition, if such a law as mentioned in the article were in force he still could have obtained a gun illegally assuming he planned a mass murder (which apparently he did.)

Because what I said did not fit your beliefs (and by the way did not necessarily reflect any of my beliefs) you chose to call it trolling.

This seems to infer a closed mind on our part since you since you are not offering a counter argument other than straw man or ad hominem. Let's see facts or law or something other than those fallacies if you are really interested in discussion and not bloviation.

I offered the thought in the spirit of discourse and skeptical thinking.

what a crock from the fbi, an entity that has never let any law stand in its way of intelligence gathering.

"you are not offering a counter argument other than straw man or ad hominem. "

Projecting much, mikey?

"I offered the thought in the spirit of discourse and skeptical thinking."

I'm skeptical that you posted this sort of trite, insipid tautology:

"being a felon does not seem to be an impediment to criminals when they buy or steal guns."

in the spirit of discourse. Nobody here is fooled, mikey.

Smarter trolls, please.

[...] those suspected of terrorist activity can't buy a plane ticket, [...] -- Steve Benen

I don't think that's correct. I think people on the no-fly lists are allowed to *buy* a plane ticket (we are, after all, a free market democracy); they're just not allowed to *use* it -- they're stopped at the airport. And no refunds, either, so that everyone's happy.

Joel,

I'm sorry the big words confused you.

Gun ownership is a right protected by the constitution. Flying by public airlines is not.
The price of freedom is not free.

BTW, the plane ticket thing is a bad justification: there's little reason to be banning anywhere from a quarter of a million to a million people from flying.

mikeyes: I simply stated that because Nadal was an army officer (hence assumed to be a patriot and not a terrorist)..

right...

an army officer who communicates with a radical islamic cleric..

which the fbi knew about..

example #520473 as to why people don't trust conservative problem solving..