True gunsense prevailed today in the senate as two gun control proposals were voted down:
The Senate on Thursday voted down two gun control proposals put forward by Democrats in response to this week’s deadly shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., in a series of votes that highlighted the intractable party divide over how to respond to gun violence.
The Senate rejected a measure from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to expand background checks for guns purchased online and at gun shows on a 48 to 50 vote and an amendment from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to prevent individuals on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms on a 45 to 54 vote. The amendments were offered to an Obamacare repeal package currently being debated in the Senate and they needed 60 votes to be adopted.
Two things:
1) Background checks already exist for purchases made online. Newsflash to Manchin: When you purchase guns online they aren't shipped to your house like an Amazon delivery. They must be shipped to a FFL where you then go, fill out a 4473, get your background check, and if cleared you can take it home. Period. This law already exists.
2) If Democrats want to stop suspected terrorists placed on a watch list from buying firearms they need to indict them. They must bring formal charges. We don't suspend the 5th Amendment rights of due process for American citizens based on (often faulty) suspicion. There are American citizens on this list, a sizable number that are innocent and are innocently listed. We don't deny them the opportunity of a fair trail, to face their accuser, and defend themselves. A simple federal charge is enough to temporarily render them a prohibited possessor at which time evidence will either exonerate or convict them. People like Teddy Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis, Nelson Mandela, journalists Leland Vittert and Stephan Hayes were all listed. Stripping someone of a natural right based on suspicion alone is a penalty without a conviction. And once you're on this list? There is no disclosure as to how someone is included on the list and it's next to impossible to get yourself removed. Democrats want inclusion on the list to count as a conviction because it excuses them from bringing formal charges based on evidence. If you have evidence, bring forth charges. This expectation that the American people should bear the burden of the state's inability, or outright refusal, to prosecute suspected terrorists isn't Constitutional. It's difficult to believe that Democrats are serious about barring terrorists from firearms when they've armed them and seemingly refuse to prosecute. Democrats want to sell you the emergency of barring terrorist access to firearms while ignoring the very law that would allow them to do so while avoiding infringement on Second Amendment rights. They cannot combat terrorism unless they are given consent to list anyone—and considering how zealously they placed returning veterans and tea partiers on terror watch lists a few years ago, you should be concerned.
Kudos to the senators who voted against this Trojan horse.
