Why Should Axing Due Process Stop With The Second Amendment?

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Rick Wilson:

First, it would be so nice to write about something — anything — unrelated to Donald Trump, but even the current House of Representatives scrap over gun rights reflects the debased and foolhardy political season in which we live. Stupid, flashy, and post-constitutional is the new hotness. I’m old enough to remember when Democrats would fight like wild dogs to protect even unenumerated and implied constitutional rights, but hey, it’s guns, right?

For the last 24 hours Democrats have been testing House Speaker Paul Ryan, garnering national media attention and generally trying through bluster to achieve what they can’t with votes. The sit-in ended not because of principle, but because Democrats knew the media would get bored in the next few hours, the weekend beckons, and Trump’s rage over not being the center of media attention would drag the cameras away. As camera-friendly and amusing as the protest was, there are broader and more important lessons to derive from this sudden ease in which Democrats propose to eliminate our rights.

My objection to the no-fly no-buy proposal, while certainly based on Second Amendment grounds, is more broadly one of opposition to any system that allows almost entirely unaccountable bureaucrats to restrict constitutional rights without notice, recourse, or accountability. No matter how meritorious you believe your cause to be, excising rights at the behest of a government executive or agency should terrify any right-thinking person. If you think the terror watch list is merely an affront to the Second Amendment, you’re not paying attention.

This Is a Real Slippery Slope

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to create a gedankenexpriment where the erosion of rights embodied in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments is the next stop on turning the Constitution into a Chinese menu where one party removes rights from Column A and the other from Column B. Just saying, “But guns…” doesn’t make it less dangerous.

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches? Surely, thesedangerous terror masterminds on the watch list should be monitored with warrantless wiretaps? Perhaps the FBI should install keyloggers on their computers, plant spyware on their phones, and monitor their private email and social-media messages? Why bother with a warrant or due process? They’re on the list. (As an aside, I’m old enough to remember when the Democrats viewed the National Security Agency’s programs to monitor potential terrorists as an impeachable offense and a profound affront to the Constitution.)

On Twitter today, I jokingly proposed removing the Third Amendment rights of those on the no-fly list so we can quarter soldiers in their homes. It’s a simple fix, and seems like a cost-savings for the government and a deterrent to terrorist shenanigans. Why not really go for the Constitution-shredding gold and suspend the Fourteenth Amendment rights of people on the no-fly list? At that point, they’re not even human. Problem solved!

“But but but…that’s impossible! We’re only talking about guns!” will be the inevitable response from Democrats. The problem here is American history, where even the rights of American citizens have been broken, suspended, and sacrificed by government in the edges of political and moral panics, or in time of war.

Unchecked Government Terrorizes People

On a hundred-year time scale you have more to fear from an unaccountable government than you do from radical Islam. A bureaucracy empowered to place you on a list where your rights can be excised or suspended will follow the inevitable path of all government agencies and programs: its scope will grow, it will become more opaque and resistant to oversight, and it will resist reform at every moment. Islamic terrorists have signifiers, tells, and structures we can attack with either our intelligence services or military options. Government agencies are nearly impervious to all forms of challenge.

The list that denies a potential terrorist the right to buy a gun today may expand to animal rights activists or Black Lives Matter protestors or anti-abortion campaigners tomorrow, all depending on the whim of the executive or even some a nameless bureaucrat. A list that stops you from boarding a plane today is a list that might deny you a license to drive, speak, or vote tomorrow.

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An example I like to use, which was graphically demonstrated here in Texas is how avid the left is to regulate gun rights, now matter how un-applicable the regulations are to actually addressing any known threat, but go NUTS when a contrived right to an abortion is regulated to assure repetitions of fiends like Gosnell (Philadelphia) or Karpen (Houston) are prevented.

To the left, laws, regulations and the Constitution are nothing but tools to further their agenda. They are not intended to apply equally to everyone.

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I see where John Lewis and the other demac-BRATS all went home but said they’ll return on July 5th they realy need to lock up the building with the demac-BRATS in it and cut off their meals and wine lets see how long they would stay

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@Spurwing Plover: Meals with wine?
Those hypocrites ordered CHICK-FIL-A!
Yeah, you know, the gay bashers.

Townhall reports:

As Cortney reported earlier today, House Democrats staged a sit-in to force a vote on gun control legislation, specifically the “no fly, no buy” bill that would bar people on terror watch lists from buying guns. They sat on the House floor for most of the day, reading the names of the victims of gun violence. In an ironic dinner choice, catered Chick-fil-A was spotted being wheeled into the Capitol Building for the hungry Democrats.

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@Spurwing Plover: Put them all on a terror watch list and not let them back in the Capital building. Then, make it impossible for them to get off of it.

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Democrats pissed off more than just Republicans with their House sit-in

But upon closer inspection, Democrats may have rallied around the wrong piece of legislation. The sit-in focused on a proposal to ban people on terrorism watchlists from purchasing firearms. Few people are in favor of letting terror suspects buy guns — especially after the gunman in the Orlando mass shooting was able to purchase his weapons legally despite having been investigated by the FBI over terror concerns — but civil liberties groups have warned that such proposals are dangerous.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are placed on watchlists for reasons that are not public or subject to due process, which groups like the the ACLU say is too broad and vague of a system to be used to infringe on someone’s constitutional right to purchase a firearm.

Under a similar proposal currently being debated in the Senate, “the applicant for a gun permit would not be able to see the government evidence used against him or her,” said Chris Anders, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Washington, DC legislative office. “That means a right would be denied based on secret evidence, which violates a number of fundamental due process protections.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan used a similar argument in explaining why Republicans wouldn’t allow a vote on Wednesday, telling CNN that lawmakers were “not going to take away a citizen’s constitutional rights without due process.” He also called the sit-in a “publicity stunt.”

The ACLU estimates that about 35 percent of the names on US government watchlists have no factual basis for being there. The group also says the government doesn’t have a way of clearing a person’s name once someone has been blacklisted.

“It’s ridiculous, the notion that somehow the watchlists are a reliable measuring stick for who should be deprived of an ability to purchase weapons,” said Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York, told the Guardian.

The Democrats behind the sit-in argued that something needed to be done to prevent guns from getting into the hands of terrorists.

And, (at the risk of sounding like a parrot) not one of the measures the Pajama Democrats wanted would have done a damn thing to stop the Orlando Pulse Massacre terrorist.

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Here’s a novel idea: Wisc. Rep: Gun-Free Businesses Should Pay Triple Damages in Event of Shooting:

Wisconsin state representative Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) wants gun-free businesses to pay triple damages in the event that an unarmed law-abiding citizen is harmed during an on-premises attack.

Gannon hopes his bill discourage businesses from banning guns in the first place.

According to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Sentinel Journal, the bill is titled the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act.” And Gannon said the “bill will give the citizens of Wisconsin a better chance of defending themselves and their loved ones against this scourge of terrorist activity.”

Wisconsin’s concealed carry law allows privately-owned businesses to bar guns on their premises. Gannon’s bill would not erase that allowance, it would simply make sure that businesses which choose to disarm law-abiding citizens would do so with the understanding that they are financially liable for the well-being of said citizens.

Gannon said he is getting support for the bill but will not be releasing names until the bill is ready for consideration in early 2017.

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