Bloomberg and Emanuel on Taking on the NRA at Election Time

[struggle4progress]

By Azi Paybarah
November 23, 2009 | 2:27 p.m

Today, Michael Bloomberg's coalition against illegal guns placed a full-page ad in the Washington Post urging lawmakers to prevent suspects on a federally maintained "terror watch list" from being allowed to purchase guns.

"500 mayors agree with the Obama and Bush Administrations: stop terror suspects from getting guns," the ad says.

It's also been an issue that Rahm Emanuel voiced support for back in 2007, according to this video clip.

"We got to make this a number one issue, as a test vote, and take it into the election." He added, "If it's between that terrorist list and the NRA, I know where America is going to be every time" ...

http://www.observer.com/2009/politics/bloomberg-emanuel-taking-nra-election-time

[midnight]

1. All efforts should be toward putting people back to work and making sure

they have access to medical care. These are much more vital security issues. Howard Dean is probably wondering when the citizens are going to wake up and wonder why we worked so hard for this gun issue to be priority one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a gun advocate, but we having bigger problems.

[krispos42]

2. Yeah, 16,000 people murdered a year by non-terrorists, and what are they worried about?

Christ, if the terrorists are here, it's not to shoot up a 7-Eleven. It will be something BIG and EXPLOSIVE.



The issue is that there is no due process to get on a terrorist watch list. It's entirely arbitrary. Hell, the late Ted Kennedy was on it! So was radio host Randi Rhodes!


So what happens if you get on a terrorist watch list? You magically don't have any Constitutional rights any more? Gov't can tap your phones, spy on your emails, hack into your computer, bug your house, arrest you without a warrant, take away your right to vote, hold you indefinately without trial or attorney... all because some government agent puts a name that sounds like yours on some list?

Do we really want to create such an easy back door route to LEGAL unilateral government violation of rights?

[struggle4progress]

3. Yes, due process is a serious issue here

[safeinOhio]

4. Why not allow an appeal, then we would have

due process? At least one can go to court to block a PPO by an ex. One needs the same rights here. Some one can "turn in" a terrorist as a means of harassment. Make the accuser, accuse in court.

[one-eyed fat man]

5. The list is a smokescreen.

The whole point of those who advocate using the terror watch list is to add to the list of "prohibited persons". Carolyn McCarthy has proposed using military and VA medical records to add the names of all combat veterans to the list of those prohibited from buying guns because of presumed PTSD.

The appeal of this approach is they can "argue" that, "You can't possibly be in favor of arming terrorists, can you?"

This is really a variation of "What does it matter if the cops search you if don't have anything to hide?"

The bottom line is the criteria doesn't really matter, if they thought they could get away with adding "red-headed step children" to the list they would because it is all about restricting all civilian gun ownership. If they can't get the whole loaf all at once, they will take it a slice at time. They don't much care how they do it as long as they do it.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

8. The promt response to such an appeal would be:

"You can't possibly be suggesting there are over 1,000,000 terrorists in the US."
or
"Are you suggesting that the US discards due process before striping rights?"

[SteveM]

9. "Terrorist Watch Lists" are a variation of the same ol' song...

of how to get at some people "we" don't consider "safe" or "patriotic" and deny them certain rights without going through the due process protection of the 5th Amendment. Both the "left" and the right have used various schemes to accomplish the same thing. I am especially concerned with the probability that such lists would be constantly expanded to include people with some kind of psychological malady de jour.

I don't know what it is about the academic subject of psychology which invites anyone with a passing skill at writing/speaking to stand up and sound authoritative and knowledgeable, and then to propose using some cantilevered expression as a tag to essentially try, convict and punish a citizen, all in one fell swoop.

[benEzra]

6. Being on one of the secret blacklists the Bush Administration set up...

does NOT make someone a "terrorism suspect." A suspect is someone who is suspected of committing a crime, not someone who has been blacklisted for attending an anti-war protest or attending the wrong mosque once.

Funny how civil liberties and due process go out the window whenever some communitarian control freak yells "OMG TEH GUNZ!!!"

I suppose the Bush Administration's crime on the issue was merely choosing the wrong scare terms, then? "Terrah" instead of "gunz"?

[slackmaster]

7. Bloomberg is a Fascist

What other civil rights hould people on the secret "terror watch list" be denied, with no appeals process available?

[spin]

10. Always remember that gun control is designed to keep "those people"...

from owning weapons.

[virginia mountainman]

11. Taking on the NRA??? LOL!!!

Bloomberg is wanting more public punishment?? Damn lier, and filthy REPUBLICAN that he is.

Seems everytime he gets noisy, he gets promptly slapped down.

[DonP]

19. Taking on the ACLU too

The last time I checked the ACLU was taking actions to disclose the names on the list, how they got there and have an independent panel review the names on the list to determine if they had any validity.

But for some reason Bloomberg forgot to mention that I bet.

It's easier to get ignorant people worked up over the evil NRA than the ACLU.

[gorfle]

12. THE TERROR WATCH LIST IS BULLSHIT!

The federal government has already acknowledged that the people who really should be on the Terror Watch List - known terrorists - are not on the list.

The watch list is a secret list. They will not tell you if you are on the list or not.

Do you really want to go down the road of restricting Constitutional rights based on secret government lists of citizens?

It's fucking McCarthyism all over again.

[GreenStormCloud]

13. Is trashing the Constitution "progress"?

You call yourself struggle4progress, yet in your posts you want to strip Americans of their rights under the 1st and 5th Amendments, as well as under the 2nd. You would set up an authoritarian dictatorship and call that progress.

[TPaine7]

14. If one is going to hell in a handbasket

getting through the gates is progress.

[virginia mountainman]

15. struggle4progress, is struggling for Republicans...

namely, ONE, Republican, M, Bloomberg, and Struggle, evidently also supports Republicans, Sarah Brady, and Paul Helmke....

Yea, Struggling progressivly right into opression...

[aikoaiko]

16. Due process is a serious issue but not for Bloomberg and Emanuel, sadly.

No one wants to arm a terrorist, but some of us are not willing to forgo due process to law abiding residents of the US in the false name of security.

I expect such bullshit from Bloomberg, but for Emanuel had better rethink things now that he is in his current position.

[one-eyed fat man]

17. Emanuel has a history.

of ruthlessly using any methods, including those not specifically outlawed, at his disposal to forward his agenda. What really should be apparent is that when 'extra-legal' powers are grabbed by one administration, like the abuses created by the duplicitously named 'Patriot Act' by the last bunch of hooligans, it is no small irony that those same abusive powers are now being jealously guarded by the bunch that was supposed to 'change' all that.

If anything, one should remember, that when Bill Clinton complained about being stymied in court over warrant-less searches and seizures in Chicago public housing and directed the, then, Attorney General to find a way to work around the "impediments to effective government action" that is EXACTLY and PRECISELY what was intended by the Bill of Rights. The whole damn point of the Bill of Rights is to limit government; to prevent government from being 'overly effective!'

Under our system, the government is not supposed to have any powers, the we, the citizens, do not GRANT them. Anyone who grants the government a 'club' to use against its 'undesirables de jour' needs to consider what happens when the pendulum swings and the opposition inherits that 'club.'

[Katya Mullethov]

18. It has always puzzled me as to why

New York tries to blame its crime problem on other states, those other states don't complain about New York allowing its criminals to spread their criminality nationwide.

Maybe if New York took care of business and put its criminals in jail, nobody would care about guns being sold 750 miles away.

Sort of the attitude that I have about other people's kids, I can either lock up my guns and knives and chemicals and car keys and porn, or they can try to control their damn rug rats.

We will never have a world where we can allow criminals to roam free without it hurting us.