Joe sent us: >http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5279377.html >Suspected terrorists still can buy guns >Eric Lichtblau, New York Times >March 8, 2005 >WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Dozens of terrorist suspects on federal watch lists
My first question is whether being on a federal watch list makes one a terrorist suspect? Next is whether an individual can find out if he/she is on a watch list, and, if so, is it appealable? My guess is No, and No - based on what I've heard about the "No Fly" list. >were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, >according to a congressional investigation that points up major >vulnerabilities in federal gun laws. > >People suspected of being members of terrorist groups are not >automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the new >investigation, conducted by congressional officials at the Government >Accountability Office (GAO), indicated that people with clear links to >terrorist groups had taken advantage of this gap on a regular basis. "regular basis" appears to mean 9 or less times a month for the entire country - or perhaps 6 or less - depending on which time period is counted. >Since Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement officials have voiced increasing >concern about the prospect of having a terrorist walk into a gun shop, Whoops - note that "terrorist suspect" is now "terrorist". >legally buying an assault rifle or other type of weapon. I'm sure this means "semiauto rifle". On a priority basis, how much concern should there be about hand-held firearms vs. weapons capable of more massive destruction? >The GAO study offers the first full-scale examination of the possible >dangers posed by gaps in the law, congressional officials said, and it >concludes that the FBI could do a better job of matching gun background >checks against lists of suspected terrorists. > >At least 44 times between February and June 2004, people regarded by >the FBI as known or suspected members of terrorist groups sought >permission to buy or carry guns, the GAO found. Here's the 9/month (44/5 = 8.8) but this includes purchase and application for a carry permit. So the purchase could be lower, perhaps a lot lower, than the total. >In all but nine cases, the FBI or state authorities who handled the >requests allowed the gun applications to proceed because a check of the >would-be buyer found no automatic disqualification, like being a felon, >an illegal immigrant or a person deemed "mentally defective," the >report found. > >In the four months after the formal study ended, authorities received >another 14 gun applications from terror suspects, and all but two of 58/9 = 6.4 per month >those were cleared to proceed, the investigation found. In all, >officials approved 47 of 58 gun applications from terror suspects over >a nine-month period last year, the GAO found. That's 11 unapproved in 9 months = 1.2/month. >The gun buyers came up as positive matches on a classified internal FBI >watch list that includes thousands of high-risk terrorist suspects, >many of them being monitored, trailed or sought for questioning as part >of continuing terrorism investigations, officials said. > >GAO investigators were not given access to the identities or histories >of the gun buyers because of the sensitivity of those terrorism >investigations. > >The report is to be released today; an advance copy was provided to The >New York Times. > >Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who requested the GAO study, plans to >introduce legislation to address the problem in part by requiring >federal officials to keep records of gun purchases by terror suspects >for a minimum of 10 years. > >Such records must now be destroyed within 24 hours as a result of a >change ordered by Congress last year, but Lautenberg maintains that the >new policy has hindered terrorism investigations by eliminating the >paper trail on gun purchases. > >"Destroying these records in 24 hours is senseless and will only help >terrorists cover their tracks," Lautenberg said Monday. "It's an absurd >policy." Is it reasonable to believe that finding out that someone bought a firearm 9 years ago will help fight terrorism? Or is any connection, no matter how tenuous, sufficient? > ... >In response to the GAO report, Lautenberg also plans to ask Attorney >General Alberto Gonzales, Ashcroft's successor, to assess whether >people on the FBI's terror watch list should be automatically banned >from buying guns. Such a policy would require a change in federal law, >since being a member of a terrorist group is not a banned category. This produces the same question of whether one can lose a right by being on a secret list? > ... >Under the new policy, millions of gun applications are run against the >FBI's internal terrorist watch list, and if there is a match, FBI field >agents or other counter-terrorism personnel are to be contacted to >determine whether they have any information about the terror suspect >that would prohibit the pending sale from being completed. > >In some cases, the extra review allowed the FBI to block a gun purchase >by a suspected terrorist that might otherwise have proceeded because of >a lag time in putting information into the database, the GAO report >said. This "block" of gun purchases seems to explain some of the 11 cases over 9 months - not all of the 11 because some of the blocks seem to have been by State authorities (see above.) So this seems to reduce to a situation of blocking about 1 purchase a month in the entire country. >The GAO report concluded that the Justice Department should clarify >what information could and could not be shared between gun-purchasing >administrators and terrorism investigators. This is part of a much more general question about sharing of information between agencies. --henry schaffer _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
