An Idea That Won’t Fly

Much is being made today by the President and other Left Wing gun control activists about limiting or banning the purchase of firearms by folks on the US Governmental “no fly” list.

The problem is, it’s not just pro-gun Republicans and Libertarians that have a problem with the No Fly List’s accuracy and abuse in the real world.

For example, the Washington Post notes that the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility Project at City University of New York has assisted in filing litigation in the past regarding FBI abuse of the no fly list. In Tanvir v. Holder the FBI is being sued for trying to punish 4 Muslim men for not becoming undercover informants for the Government. City University of New York is no right-wing hotbed, and its professors could easily be said to be AWOL in the war to protect the right to keep and bear arms.

Likewise, the ACLU maintains an extensive project monitoring Executive Branch abuse of no fly lists.

If this is how a President-cum-law-professor treats and alarms its friends, one can only imagine the kind of retribution a White House Lame Duck has in mind for his political opponents. Given the Administration’s use of the IRS to target conservative donors and conservative 501 c) 3 groups, the move to expand the prohibited persons classification for firearms ownership by adding the no fly list has grave political implications.

Thus the refusal of such civil liberties organizations as the NRA to accept the kind of further abridgment of civil liberties that the ACLU is already in opposition to makes that opposition mainstream, not fringe as hinted by some in the media.

Currently, the civil libertarians are winning this latest attempt by a Leviathan government to disarm the people by any means at its disposal. Given the likelihood of further terrorist attacks in the United States as long as Islamists continue to wage asymmetric war, citizens are more likely to want to have the means of their own self-defense at hand rather than rely on a government noted for its security failures.