The Problem With The Terrorist Watch List, No-Fly List And Gun Prohibition
BY Herschel Smith
9 years ago
Reader and commenter Menckenlite concerning guns and mental health.
Control freaks love psychiatry, a means of social control with no Due Process protections. It is a system of personal opinion masquerading as science. See, e.g., Boston University Psychology Professor Margaret Hagan’s book, Whores of the Court, to see how arbitrary psychiatric illnesses are. Peter Breggin, Fred Baughman and Thomas Szasz wrote extensively about abuses of psychiatry. Liberals blame guns for violence. Conservatives blame mental illness. Neither have any causal connection to violence. The issue is criminal conduct, crime. Suggesting that persons with legal disabilities are criminals shows the nonsensical argument of this politician and his fellow control freaks. Shame on them.
Oftentimes my readers can say things better than can I. The above quote is a perfect example. Obama now wants guns from these 47,000 people.
If the federal government doesn’t want the 47,000 people on its No-Fly List to board airplanes, those individuals should be banned from ever owning guns, President Obama argued in his Sunday address from the Oval Office – but if his proposal ever becomes law, America could see U.S. Marines, congressmen, journalists and even federal air marshals mistakenly stripped of their firearms.
“To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a No-Fly List is able to buy a gun,” Obama said Dec. 6. “What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to but a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.”
But while San Bernardino, California, terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook managed to fly to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia under the radar of federal authorities in 2014, thousands of innocent people have been mistakenly linked to U.S. terror watchlists. Some experts and critics contend the federal list process contains many errors and relies on an overly broad standard of reasonable suspicion.
[ … ]
“When I went online to check in with Southwest, they wouldn’t let me. I figured it was some glitch,” he said. “Then I got to the airport and went to check in. The woman had a concerned look on her face. She brought over her supervisor and a few other people. Then they shut down the lane I was in, took me to the side, told me I was a selectee and scrawled [something] on my ticket.”
Hayes said a Southwest Airlines agent later informed him that he was on the government’s terrorist watchlist.
Many children under the age of five have generated false positives when their names were listed among those on the No-Fly List. One 18-month-old baby was pulled off a JetBlue flight in 2012.
In 2003 , 71-year-old Milwaukee nun Sister Virgine Lawinger had her travel plans interrupted.
In 2006, a U.S. Marine had his trip home to Minneapolis from Iraq delayed when his name appeared on the list.
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., said he was stopped between 35 and 40 times in only a year after his name appeared on the list in 2003.
Even members of the Federal Air Marshal Service said they were blocked from boarding planes in 2008 after their names appeared in the database.
One marshal told the Washington Times it’s “a major problem, where guys are denied boarding by the airline.”
Leaving the federal government in charge of anything is the surest way to screw it up. I’m sure it is indeed a problem for the air marshals. But the biggest issue for me isn’t related to errors and screwups, as prolific as they may be with the *.gov. Another thing this conversation suffers from is confusion of the terrorist watch list with the no-fly list. They are not at all the same thing. Obama wants you to be confused, he revels in it, he will use it to his advantage.
If a terrorist is inside America, deport him. If a terrorist is trying to get in, bar him. Close the borders immediately and completely, and the issue of ne’er-do-wells perpetrating crimes and terror via our border will go away. But since we won’t close the borders, we aren’t serious about this problem, at least not yet.
In the mean time, Obama doesn’t really want 47,000 people to turn in their guns. He doesn’t care in the least about errors and screwups. He wants so-called anti-government types on the list, or in other words, people who believe in God, people who believe in the constitution, people who believe in their right to bear arms, and people who think the *.gov is too intrusive and the executive branch too powerful.
And therein lies the problem. Under Obama’s schema, the executive can put anyone on the list for literally any reason. I sometimes disagree with Volokh, but in this case I think he nailed it.
… we don’t deny constitutional rights based just on suspicion? If you think you can prove someone is a terrorist, lock him up. If you have probable cause to think he’s a terrorist, and think you can develop proof beyond a reasonable doubt, arrest him. Even if you have only suspicion, follow him, ask people about him, and so on. But if you don’t have enough to prosecute or even arrest someone, you can’t take away his constitutional rights, even if you suspect he’s a terrorist (or if you suspect he’s a drug dealer or a gang member or whatever else).
This is the nexus between mental health and terrorism. Unfortunately for those who suffer from mental health issues, they are misunderstood and badly characterized, in large measure because everything that occurs due to the existence of evil in the world is falsely ascribed to mental health.
The nexus has to do with the how the progressives treat them. The commonality is an end run around due process, and the progressives no more regret that for believers in the constitution than they do for those who suffer from mental health maladies. In fact, the progressives would likely see everyone cast into the same boat – those who suffer from mental health maladies, a category including all conservatives or libertarians.
Don’t fall for the rhetoric. It’s a smoke screen, a ruse. Obama and his ilk don’t really care about terrorism in the way you do. They want to take your guns. Isn’t it telling and ironic that while collectivists want to ban people from buying guns by executive fiat, Donald Trump is open to the idea. Or was I being redundant by saying “collectivists” and Donald Trump?”
On December 8, 2015 at 9:43 am, Fred said:
“Unfortunately for those who suffer from mental health issues, they are
misunderstood and badly characterized, in large measure because
everything that occurs due to the existence of evil in the world is
falsely ascribed to mental health.”
Exactly right. Psychiatry is the modern equivalent of the Village Witch Doctor in that it is used to explain anything we (they) don’t understand about the human mental state especially as it relates to behavior. It is for many of it’s followers a grotesque form of idolatry. Guess what – Good and evil exist. Although psychiatry and psychology can help many for a season there is in fact only one cure. His name is Jesus. He is the risen Christ.
I have to give Freud credit for one thing. He said “A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded emotional and sexual maturity.” I don’t believe that, having brought many a first time shooter from a state of fear into a state of respect and enjoyment. It is funny though.
On December 8, 2015 at 4:40 pm, Fred said:
And there is this via TheGunFeed:
http://www.sciencecodex.com/an_evolutionary_psychology_explanation_for_mass_shootings-171164
Apparently being a young male is some sort of syndrome and equates to monkey fights. Gotta love them witch doctors.
On December 8, 2015 at 10:33 am, Blake said:
If the Obama is allowed to use the no-fly list in order to control who is allowed to have guns, you can bet the no-fly list will grow in size rapidly.
On December 8, 2015 at 1:49 pm, Archer said:
Therein lies part of the deception. Obama says people on the “No-Fly list” should be barred from owning guns. Legislation introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA, of course), supposedly to that effect, named the “terror watch list” instead.
The “terror watch list” doesn’t have 47,000 names. It has between 900,000 and 1 million names (possibly more; nobody knows for sure), and inclusion on that list is even more arbitrary and unaccountable than inclusion on the “No-Fly list”.
They’re counting on the confusion between the two to pull off the bait-and-switch.
And yes, if they pull that off, you can start taking bets on how long it takes to expand those 1 million names to 10 million.
On December 8, 2015 at 2:06 pm, Fred said:
Thanks for the explanation. I did not know the details.
On December 10, 2015 at 10:45 pm, eskyman said:
Re: “Donald Trump is open to the idea.” Don’t start believing the MSM now, please. Especially not CNN! Trump was asked about tactics to stop Muslim jihadists and yes, he does want to keep them from getting guns. Read the rest of the article (and listen to his speeches) Trump is very pro-2nd Amendment. He often says that a big part of the reason so many were killed in Paris, and in California, was because the people there were disarmed by their governments, which is wrong!
Collectivists are those like Feinstein, Pelosi, Boxer, Moonbat Brown- and they aren’t like Trump at all, at all!