Terrorist watch list and being able to purchase a firearm

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Just depends on who gets to make decisions on who is added to terrorist watch list. And who gets to decide the definition of a terrorist. And , oh never mind. I don't trust the government much to regulate such things.

You are probably just flaming the board, but I would be surprised if a lot of people would be for allowing someone on a terrorist watch list to have the right to buy weapons.

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No brainer

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In more ways than one.

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Why would this even be a question?

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Because you have to be educated on the issue to discuss it a meaningful way. I'm sympathetic to this call to action, but I also recognize there are roughly 300k folks on this list. There is no due process to put them on there, it's a simple administrative act. There is no due process, no notice given to the individual, no opportunity for rebuttal and, more importantly, no administrative procedure to remove oneself and there are 10s of thousands of folks on there erroneously.

While I'm obviously not for terror suspects buying guns, I'm also not so cavalier as to discard the rights of others, particularly when we have seen the abuse of political opponents by the party in power, particularly with executive agencies.

So, there is all of that, just as food for thought.

Do you trust politicians? There is your answer.

The biggest problem here is due process. If the FBI suspects you of being, say, a member of a group that someone says is interested in perhaps one day of overthrowing the government, then congratulations you are on a watch list! No trial by jury or anything like that.

This is a very easy way of circumventing the Second Amendment for those who are inclined to do so.

Ace midnight hit the nail on the head. Being put on this list is not an indicator of guilt, it's only suspicion by the government. If the person has a conviction against them that could preclude them I'm all for it.

Do you want to take away constitutionally protect rights without due process? As long as they are a US citizen it should take more than just suspicion.

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The 14th amendment makes clear that it is unconstitutional to deprive someone of constitutional rights without due process. Considering the FBI DOES NOT need to deal with due process to get people on the lists, such a gun restriction is unconstitutional under the 14th amendment.

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I get ALL of this, and I'm sympathetic to the fear of people being denied the right to purchase a firearm who are on there erroneously.

However, the other side is going to say that denying those rights to someone erroneously here or there is peanuts if the alternative is that a person on the list for good reason can walk in and buy whatever weapon they'd like, and I'm not sure they're wrong.