i'm Waiting for Republicans to Come Out Against the No Fly List [View all]

[Tom Rinaldo]

It simply follows from their logic. We live in a free society with constitutionally protected equal rights. Why should person A who has not been convicted of any crime be able to board an airplane while person B who has not been convicted of any crime can not?

That is the supposed basis for Republicans wanting people who have been placed on the Terrorist Watch List No Fly List to be able to buy guns. They claim those people with suspected terrorist sympathies have a constitutional right to own weapons that supersedes our right as a society to take seemingly reasonable measures to prevent a terrorist massacre. After all, maybe they were put on that list by mistake. Maybe the list is so shoddily assembled, so riddled with potential errors, that an innocent person might be prevented from buying an assault rifle even though someone involved in the national security apparatus had reason to think they might be a potential terrorist.

So why is it again that some people are being denied the right to travel freely? Why is their potential livelihood being threatened because they can not move rapidly from point A to point B by plane should their business interests require them to? Are only Americans who want to buy guns having their constitutional rights abridged through placement on a No Fly list? Is it the Republican position that we have to let them all arm themselves while we simultaneously keep them off our planes? But, but, they just might be innocent they say. How can Republicans support the No Fly list then I wonder? I expect them to come out strongly against it, oh, any century now.