No Fly, No Buy: Can Gov’t Use Secret Reasons to Take Away Your Right to Self-Defense?

While four pieces of gun control have so far FAILED in the Senate following the Orlando nightclub massacre, the powers-that-be haven’t given up yet.

And likely won’t, until they chip away and, ultimately, undermine the Second Amendment.

The Republican Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, is about to introduce another version of ‘No Fly, No Buy’ legislation, and one that they hope will win passage through compromise.

As the WSJ noted:

The Senate on Monday night rejected four proposals to tighten the nation’s gun laws… But a bipartisan group of lawmakers frustrated by the Senate’s fruitless attempts to craft new gun restrictions said support was growing for a separate effort led by Sen. Susan Collins

Ms. Collins’ proposal would ban sales of guns to terrorism suspects who appear on either the government’s “no-fly list,” which prevents certain travelers from boarding commercial flights in the U.S., or on a separate “selectee list” that requires additional screening at airports.

[…]

Federal authorities would also be notified of any gun purchases by anyone on the government’s terror watch lists over the prior five years, allowing the FBI to put the person under surveillance.

TOMORROW @ 1:45 pm: Sen Collins & others to unveil bipartisan compromise to help keep guns from terrorists & make America safer #mepolitics

— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) June 21, 2016

Needless to say, the “no fly, no buy” application of the terrorism watch list to gun purchases is a terrible idea, and a tragic one not just for the innocent people who may be on the list, but for constitutional government and the “free world” in general.

Possibly, it sounds good on the surface to some, and appealing as a “common sense” and simple solution to terrorism.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

It is a failure of logic, and well as a violation of everyone’s constitutional rights.

It’s pretty simple – being flagged and “watched” for a suspicion that is neither proven nor charged against an individual should absolutely NEVER be used as legal justification for depriving anyone of their rights, regardless of what others may think of them.

Unconstitutional hearsay and mere suspicion are not evidence, and do not make the person under watch a criminal.

Thus, to deny them the right to due process, or the right to purchase of firearm, flying in the face of the 5th and 2nd Amendments, respectively, is extremely unconstitutional and dangerous, just as Tenth Amendment Center executive director Michael Boldin points out in this succinct and important video:

Governing and policing by secret lists will only produce… secret government (or more of it).

These are no conditions for liberty, but in fact antithetical to it.

As Michael Boldin pointed out, the founders were well aware of this simple wisdom – it was a major driver in the attempt to set up a government that was open, accountable and, most of all, forced to respect the liberty of its people by affording them dignity and distance from arbitrary laws and secretive charges… all that is back in the direction of the dark ages (where apparently many of our misleaders want us to head).

“The liberties of a people never were, or will be secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

– Patrick Henry

Defeat of this nasty attempt to disregard due process and replace it with whisper campaigns and the kind of government that won’t even publish its evidence (as Attorney General Loretta Lynch attempted to do with the transcripts of Omar Mateen) is very important to the future of our country.

The Senate and the House must not pass this bill while the fog of tragedy is still directing people through emotional responses.

Our country cannot defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy… yet such a system would surely bring us there quickly.