In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting by a radicalized Muslim couple, House and Senate Democrats have spent the week pushing a dead-on-arrival measure to restrict gun purchases by those on the FBI’s no-fly list.
The proposal has drawn criticism from Republicans, liberals not in Congress, gun rights organizations, and civil libertarians (with the exception of the ACLU). Democrats are using the tragedy to push the gun control measure, with a series of coordinated speeches in the Senate.
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton went to the floor this morning to deliver a rebuttal:
The Democrats would have you believe that any person on a terrorist watch list can go into a federally licensed firearm dealer and buy a firearm, without any notice whatsoever. That is simply false. The background check system that federally licensed firearm dealers use includes a terror watch list, and the FBI counterterrorist division is notified when that occurs. Now of course, the list is notoriously inaccurate. The Department of Justice IG report just a few years ago said that up to half the names on the list are incorrect. The New York Times, which continues its proselytizing for gun control, used to be strongly opposed to the use of this list. Most famously, Ted Kennedy, a United States senator from America’s leading political dynasty, was on the list and couldn’t get off for weeks, having his flights disrupted time after times. Stephen Hayes, a well known conservative journalist who, I’ll admit, looks a little suspicious, also found himself on the list. It took him months of public commentary, and only was he removed from the list when Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson was challenged on the air, on Fox News, about his presence on the list. If it took people like Ted Kennedy and Stephen Hayes weeks or months to get off that list, how long do you think it would take the little guy in Arkansas?
Democrats in the House are expected to try, and fail, to push a similar motion via a discharge petition.
