It’s become routine to expect Democrats to respond to horrific mass shootings with gun control proposals.
However, only a few days following the Christchurch, New Zealand terror attack specifically targeting Muslims, 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are unveiling proposals that particularly hurt that demographic.
On Monday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told a crowd, “Unfortunately, because the gun manufacturers only care about gun sales, they oppose the common sense reforms that can save lives. They want to oppose universal background checks because they want to sell an assault rifle to a teenager in a Walmart. Or to someone on the terror watch list or to someone who’s gravely mentally ill with a violent background.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., endorsed that idea later that day during a CNN town hall, saying, “Background checks. At the federal level. No fly, no buy. Like if you’re on the terrorist watchlist, maybe you shouldn’t be able to buy a gun.”
The original proposal was sparked after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., in 2016, where the perpetrator was on a terror watchlist and was able to obtain firearms used in the shooting that left 49 people dead. That’s because although he was on the watchlist from 2013 to 2014, the FBI could not produce enough evidence to arrest or charge him with a crime.
While it’s truly awful that more could not be done to prevent such a tragedy, restricting the rights of individuals who are not convicted of a crime simply because their name is on a government watchlist is a violation of the constitutional rights of all Americans. The no-fly, no-buy gun proposal violates due process and is specifically discriminatory toward Muslims and people of Arab and South Asian descent.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the no fly list is error-prone and unfair to individuals trying to exercise their Second Amendment rights. The terror watchlist is completely arbitrary, and individuals who find their names on the list could simply share the name with a suspected terrorist.
While most Democrats seem keen on supporting the interests of Muslim and Arab Americans, the no fly, no buy gun proposal is an abhorrent abuse of our constitutional system which, in the wake of Christchurch, harms the very individuals Democrats supposedly want to protect.
