NRA Members Disagree With NRA Leadership: Those On Terrorist Watch List Should Not Be Able To Buy Firearms

Think Progress:

But it appears that rank-and-file NRA members disagree with their leadership. Today at the NRA's annual conference in Charlotte, NC, ThinkProgress asked dozens of NRA members if those on the terrorist watch list should be able to purchase firearms and an overwhelming majority agreed with Bloomberg on the need to close the "terror gap."

Read the whole story: Think Progress

Comments

[MikaS]

01:10 PM on 05/31/2010

[farmilyman]

03:43 PM on 05/18/2010

Why wasn't there a peep out of the NRA during the Cheney/bush years when they drafted the Patriot Act??

The NRA has a suspiciously high amount of money they use to influence elections and to scare people when Democrats win so that they buy more guns and ammo.

[Dimensio]

07:26 PM on 05/18/2010

The National Rifle Association addresses only firearm ownership rights and threats to such. The Patriot Act does not directly affect firearms ownership rights, and thus is outside of the scope of interest of the National Rifle Association.

[benEzra]

09:12 PM on 05/18/2010

Gun owners (including the small subset that is the NRA) certainly did stand up to the Sekrit Terrah Blacklist when the Bush Administration proposed to deny gun ownership rights to those blacklisted, which is the topic of this thread.

With the caveat that I am not a disinterested observer, I will say that from my own observation of the gun forums over the last decade, I think gun owners---both Dem and Repub---were indeed more likely to oppose the Bush/Cheney Patriot Act/Surveillance Nation/torture crap than non-gun-owners were. That's probably partly out of principle---gun owners are a little more likely to lean civil libertarian rather than authoritarian, after all---and perhaps partly out of pragmatism, as the abuses of power justified by an ill-defined "War on Terrah" can be very easily used in a similarly ill-defined "War on Gunz". That mission creep appears to me to be precisely the intent of the "No Fly, No Buy" agitprop.

[djcrsn]

12:19 PM on 05/19/2010

agreed--and being active with the NRA here in Los Angeles, the proRKBA people tend to defend the ENTIRE BOR, unlike many antigun "progressives"

[americanalien]

04:40 PM on 05/17/2010

Why do Republicans insist on keeping guns in the hands of the terrorists but not on reading them Miranda rights as prescribed under the Constitution?

[djcrsn]

06:03 PM on 05/17/2010

I agree that people that have been CONVICTED of felonies should be disarmed, but the lists under discussion were compiled in secret by bureaucrats without any sort of due process and thus do not meet the standard to deny someone rights

[Dimensio]

09:23 AM on 05/18/2010

Your inquiry is based upon a false premise. Additionally, because you know the premise to be false, your inquiry is inherently dishonest, and thus you are lying in issuing it. No claim that you issue is therefore credible.

[1will]

01:26 PM on 05/17/2010

The problem is that the terrorist watch list is largely secret, flawed and extremely difficult (almost impossible?) to get off of. There's about 1 million people on the list and as some of our own leaders have made the list it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in how well this program is run.
How hard would it be to put the entire NRA on the list? The Tea Partiers? etc.
I know...you guys think this is a great idea. Guess what. It can get flipped. After 2012 you could see the ACLU, CAIR, the SEIU and ACORN on the list.

[angrymanspokane]

12:43 PM on 05/17/2010

The "terrorist watch list" seems ominous and curiously unconstitutional. Seems to be some type of conviction without due process - a sort of 1950's era blackball list. A cursory look at this "list" reveals potential violations of the 5th and 6th Ammendments as well.

If a crime or conspiracy can be proven, prosecute and punnish. But we need to be very careful about censuring people for "what we think they might do someday". Because, maybe someday you might wind up on a "list", and then who's going to stand up for you.

[djcrsn]

06:04 PM on 05/17/2010

nice summation

[Mass Hysteria]

12:07 PM on 05/17/2010

The members of the NRA and other like minded Americans are the only thing holding this country together....

[benEzra]

11:05 AM on 05/17/2010

Yet more stumping for the Bush/Cheney secret blacklists.

This proposal was a bad idea when the Bush administration proposed it, and Congress was right to reject it. It's still a bad idea. Denial of rights based on secret blacklists, based on secret evidence and without trial, is antithetical to the rule of law in this country.

[rawresolve]

10:14 AM on 05/17/2010

The NRA slogan: PROFITS BEFORE COUNTRY.
Let's all stop pretending it's about the (continuing misrepresentation) of the 2nd Amendment.

[Dimensio]

10:15 AM on 05/17/2010

Have you any actual argument to offer?

[rawresolve]

10:49 AM on 05/17/2010

In my opinion every ridicules law the NRA pushes for in respect to gun rights is about there profits NOT what good for the the country. Guns in bars, in churches, citizens allowed semi-automatic weapons, fighting the most common sense regulation and on and on.

[Jamie Kowalski]

10:56 AM on 05/17/2010

I'd say the story this post is attached to is a pretty good argument.

[molonlabe]

10:52 AM on 05/17/2010

I scoured the NRA web site and couldn't find that slogan. Got a link?

[tomwito]

11:03 AM on 05/17/2010

Are you serious???? You think they are going to tell the people they are trying to fleece?
Hey every one all we want is your money! Can we please have it, the government is coming to take your guns by the way...

[molonlabe]

08:53 AM on 05/17/2010

I get a kick out of watching anti-gunners trying to justify the infringement on the right to due process with talking points, phallus jokes, and "It's Bush's fault!(tm)".

If this is what we can expect from those who want a "living, breathing" COTUS, someone should scribble "DNR" on that piece of scrap paper stat!

[BBackSoon]

10:41 AM on 05/17/2010

So what exactly is your problem with this proposal?

[molonlabe]

10:51 AM on 05/17/2010

You see nothing wrong with infringing upon the right to due process based on a secretive list containing "suspected" terrorists?

[djcrsn]

12:26 PM on 05/19/2010

BBS--I have 2 basic problems with requiring private sales going through FFLs: first, groups like the BC,LAGV and MAIG have a long history of using bogus lawsuits to bankrupt the firearms industry and the ONLY FFL in DC that will deal with civilians charged $125 (4x what is charged here in Los Angeles) so procedures must be in place to prevent abuse

[rich3324]

08:47 AM on 05/17/2010

Terrorist don't kill people, terrorist with guns kill people. Sounds like a great bumper sticker.

[sisyphus93]

09:08 AM on 05/17/2010

Only terrorists don't use guns, do they?

[Jamie Kowalski]

11:01 AM on 05/17/2010

Interesting. What do they shoot their bullets with?

[tomwito]

11:10 AM on 05/17/2010

A lot of our homegrown terrorists seem to like them DC snipper ring a bell?

[AndyWright68]

04:47 AM on 05/17/2010

Everyone should get a gun and keep it on them at all times. Especially if this government gets their way and manages to take our rights away with ominous lists.

[BBackSoon]

10:42 AM on 05/17/2010

I am more afraid of my mortgage company than my government.

[InYourWorld]

12:30 PM on 05/17/2010

Mortgage companies and the government are largely the same entity. I am still trying to distinguish who answers to who.

[huffy2001]

12:08 AM on 05/17/2010

Guns don't kill people...airplanes do.

[RevJimIII]

01:05 AM on 05/19/2010

I would argue its the food..

[AgathaX]

12:06 AM on 05/17/2010

I don't understand how one could deprive any US citizen on a terrorist watch list of the right to bear arms without violating the Constitution--IF, taking arms away from any random citizen would violate the Constituion. It's not like there is any sort of due process involved for those who end up on a terrorist watch list. And bearing arms is a Constitutional right--and an individual one at that, according to the Supremes.

[djcrsn]

01:33 AM on 05/17/2010

that is the basic point several of us have been trying to make--a bureaucrat putting someone on a secret list without any sort of hearing does not constitute due process

[farmilyman]

12:01 AM on 05/17/2010

Could it be that the NRA is a terrorist organization itself?.......or are they just a front organization for weapons manufacturers to sell more guns?

[OdinsEye]

12:06 AM on 05/17/2010

Neither. The NRA just doesn't want thousands of innocent people to be denied their right without due process using secretive government lists.

[farmilyman]

12:41 AM on 05/17/2010

So how do you suggest keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists?

[MarkInIrvine]

02:22 AM on 05/17/2010

I wouldn't be surprised to find that the major NRA supporters do have connections to the weapons manufacturers and that the rank and file NRA membership is being PUNKED by the upper echelon of the NRA

[Rogan]

07:27 AM on 05/17/2010

That is, indeed, exactly how it works. Look at the details of the history of legal struggles centering on gun rights, and the NRA's involvement, if you want to be really disturbed.

[Dimensio]

10:17 AM on 05/17/2010

Have you any actual evidence in support of your posited speculation?

[StJames]

06:26 PM on 05/16/2010

Michael Bloomberg, the Republican Mayor of NYC, who bought his third term after having the term limits law changed, is the one who began this call for banning the sale of firearms to people on the No Fly List. As he is not a part of this administration, why are so many blaming liberals and democrats for his stupid comments?

[OdinsEye]

06:38 PM on 05/16/2010

Because of who he has on board with his proposal.

[StJames]

06:45 PM on 05/16/2010

It is always highly entertaining to watch both sides of the gun argument foam at the mouth and spit idiocies. Dancing like a bunch of marionettes to the tune of their chosen leaders.

[sisyphus93]

08:17 PM on 05/16/2010

Because Bloomberg is a Republican in name only.