The insanity of people on No-Fly list being allowed to buy guns isn't obviously insane

This post is about how we think about and analyze civil liberties, not advocacy for any particular position on the specific topic issue.

The no-fly gun buy issue boils down to the debatable question of whether one considers gun ownership to be an American right.

If it is a right then there is nothing insane about a person on the No-Fly list being able to buy a gun if such a purchase is otherwise legal. The government cannot strip someone of a right by putting their name on a list.

We do not have a right to drive. It appears that we do not have a right to fly.

We have a right to self-publish comic books. And we seem to have a right to buy a gun. (Even Obama says gun ownership is an individual right.)

Putting someone on the No-Fly list (a unilateral administrative action) would not be sufficient to bar them from publishing their comic book, practicing their religion, being tried by a jury of their peers...

So it isn't sufficient to strip someone of their right to gun ownership, if that is a right. And if is is not a right but a privilege, as traveling on an airplane seems to be, then the question is quite different.

Note that barring gun-buying by people on the no-fly list (sane) and Joe Lieberman's call to strip those accused of terrorist association of rights of citizenship (insane) are actually exactly the same... if gun-buying is a right of citizenship.

I am not arguing that it is a right, or that it isn't a right. I am merely noting that the question is definitive.

(Disclosure: I have never even fired a gun.)

"After all, he hasn't been convicted of any crime!"

Disclosure: I have a fired a gun.

The "Terrorist Watch List" and the "no fly list" are different lists. What would be a way that we can protect innocent people in such a case? If it is unconscionable to stop a man fleeing an attempt to murder hundreds of innocent people for political purposes from acquiring the means to do that, is there anything we can do? If some idiot gets hold of a weapon and kills a busload of children (a very exterme case) do we just say that is the price of living in a free gun owning nation?

I used to get the cavity search treatment every time I flew. Then it stopped. I think I can buy a gun. Whether I should or not, that is a different question.

It is a right just as much as the right to practice your religion or write something criticial of the government.

Rights can only be suspended by due process. Nobody on the list was given due process thus they can't can't have this (or any other right) suspended.

Period.

There are over a million people on Bush Jr. TERRA watchlist. Unless you believe we have millions of terrorist in this country then one must acknowledge that most (virtually all) of the people on the list are not terrorist. They are innocents people given no due process and placed on a secret government list. They have no right of appeal, no ability to confront their accusor, to know the reason they are on the list or even IF they are on the list.

Denying rights based on secret govt lists without due process is not progressive.

Anyone who is lying and saying it is. Replace the right to own firearm with any other right and then tell me you would support a fascist govt policy of putting people on secret lists to deny them rights.

Of course the Bin Laden claim is just a canard. Bin Laden is not a citizen or legal resident of the United States. Thus he would not be able to pass the background check required to obtain a firearm. Even more stupidly if he DID try to do that he could easily be caught. The NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check) is routinely cross referenced against wanted persons.

then the whole issue falls into a certain logical framework.

And if you did not hold that view it would drop into a completely different logical framework.

That's the only point of the OP... that the rights question is definitive. Everything else is window-dressing and distraction.

If I suddenly feel right to religion means you get to pick branch of Christianity does that mean people lose the right to practice Islam?

Of course not.

The right to keep and bear arms exists. It is protected and codified by the 2nd amendment of the United States Constitution. It has been affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. The highest law of the land and the highest Court of the land are in agreement.

It is simply an inconvenient truth for those who wish to ban firearms. Something they wish they could pretend doesn't exist. Before anyone goes off of Scalia rant. All 9 justices stated the 2nd amendment is an individual right to bear arms. They only differed in how that right can be restricted.

I am not contradicting it by being agnostic for purpose of argument.

I am merely trying to open people's eyes to the mode of analysis that arises from a rights perspective.

Many people will not have considered the ramifications from that angle and do not realize that what sounds to them like a no-brainer is actually complex depending on how one defines the variables.

The NRA won't consider its job done until it destroys this country.

Allowing those on the no-fly list to buy guns is just one of the crazy policies it manipulates weak-spined politicians to support.

Replace right to keep and bear arms with any other right and tell me you would still support that policy.

The OP is about constitutional analysis of the conception of rights as it relates to a pressing policy decision.

I am sorry that many replies are going to be thoughtless pro or anti gun nonsense (much from people who do not read or care to understand the OP) but that's not really my fault.

that would do harm to you or your family. It is not a black and white world. If you are a citizen, you have a right to own a gun and to bear arms under certain circumstances which are limited. For example, the tea-baggers were not permitted to take their guns into DC when they last protested. The 2nd Amendment is not absolute, just as the 1st Amendment is not absolute. We have a "right" to protect ourselves from people that mean to do harm with guns or dynamite. The question becomes who do we protect ourselves from? Do we give them their Miranda rights? Do they have the freedom to move about as they wish? There is a "due process" involved. But that "due process" is not a perfect system.