Clarence Page getting it wrong on No fly - No Buy

As an columnist in the Detroit News, Clarence Page's column on July 7 supporting Senator Lautenberg's (D-Corruption, Toxic Waste) pushing for preventing people on the no-fly list from being alowed to purchase firearms misses the mark.

He would have been better off by first readingthe article by David Kopel detailing the problems from such a proposal from back in 2005 when Lautenberg first proposed this inane measure before he put pen to paper (along with numerous other columnists that amazingly are all talking and advocating about this right now. Funny that.

Of ciourse the problems with the list are well known including how one can appear on it while underage, or dead or for being Senator Kennedy (You crash a car and leave one girl in a lake long ago and you're branded a terrorist for life, what's the word coming to?.

Now if the focus is these people are dangerous terorirists, why were 863 of them approved by the FBI to purchase a firearm? Page ends his column with a complete non-sequiter -

He's right that rights should not be denied. However, as much as gun purchasers may object, it is not unreasonable to hold up a gun purchase for a few days so a background check can be conducted -- as long as the check is reliable enough to be worth the wait.

This after he points out that after athe standard 3 day waiting period

There were 963 attempts by people on the government's "no fly" list to buy guns from licensed dealers over the past five years ending in February, according to the Government Accountability Office report, and 865 were approved.

So in other words Clarence, there was a background check and they were approved even as they were on the list - so ehat's the point of your whole article?


More importantly however, if these supposed 400,000 people on the no-fly list should not be permitted to buy guns one can only reasonably ask why they're allowed to buy a car or even be walking around freely? After all if they're such a dangerous threat shouldn't they be detained?

I'd modestly propose offering Guantanamo Bay as a nice internment camp given Obama doesn't seem to want to use it for captured terorrists, let's just use it for no-fly list members. No due process before shipment, thank you very much, let's not stop at their second amendment rights, let's just curtail their rights in toto. Any objections?

Have to ship 'em there by boat though, as they can't fly.