Terror Suspects Buying Firearms, U.S. Report Finds

[theHandpuppet]

http://nytimes.com/2005/03/08/national/08terror.html

Terror Suspects Buying Firearms, U.S. Report Finds
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: March 8, 2005


ASHINGTON, March 7 - Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists 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 a terrorist group are not automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials and gun control groups have voiced increasing concern about the prospect of a terrorist walking into a gun shop, legally buying an assault rifle or other type of weapon and using it in an attack.

MORE....

[Ms. Clio]

1. Yes, law enforcement officials have been so worried by that prospect

that Ashcroft "suggested shortening from 90 days to no more than one business day the time during which the government keeps records on people who try to purchase firearms."

Straight from the horse's ass:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,58728,00.html

[slackmaster]

8. Those records tell nothing about the kind of gun that was bought

Records in the National Instant Check System indicate only that a federally licensed gun dealer requested a background check on someone who is attempting to purchase one or more new firearms in a state that uses NICS; and whether or not the person's name came up as being known to be prohibited from having a gun.

The system contains no information whatsoever about the make, model, serial number, the kind or number of firearms, or whether the transaction was subsequently completed. That information exists only on paper, kept in the gun dealer's official records.

NICS can't tell you anything about sales of used guns in most states.

NICS contains no information about sales conducted in states that use their own systems in lieu of NICS, which includes California.

And to top it all off, the law explicitly requires that NICS transaction records be destroyed. It does not specify a time frame for destruction.

The "Faux News" story cited is a tempest in a teapot.

[Ms. Clio]

10. My point was that it seems hypocritical & counterintuitive & nutty

to claim to know that "bad people" are buying guns, when the AG wanted to shred the records of all gun purchasers.

[slackmaster]

11. Absolutely hypocritical

But the actual records of gun purchases are not in the NICS database. NICS tells you only that a background check was initiated, on and by whom, date and time, and the outcome of the query.

Records of gun purchases are only in the paper files of gun dealers. There is no central registry of gun sales for items not covered by the National Firearms Act. And there is nothing to "shred" in NICS. It's all electronic. Making a backup copy would be trivially easy.

There really would be no harm IMO in keeping NICS check records for some defined retention period. My point is that as a law enforcement tool that information would be next to worthless.

If the FBI or another agency suspects someone of terrorism they should be tailing that person aggressively. Small arms purchases seem to me a lot less important than purchases of chemicals that can be used to produce explosive devices, chemical munitions, etc.

[Ms. Clio]

12. OIC, thanks for the clarification

I also agree that I am a heckuva lot more worried about some crazy crashing a plane into a nuclear reactor.

[NickB79]

2. Sigh, once again innocent until proven guilty means nothing

"indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap."

If they have such clear links, why aren't they arrested then? If they haven't been arrested and charged with any crimes yet, and they are legal US citizens going through the proper channels to purchase firearms, they are not doing anything illegal.

You know, if a terrorist cell from Al Queda wanted to obtain weapons for a terrorist attack, buying piss-poor semi-automatic wannabe's of AK's at the local sporting goods store isn't the smartest way to go about it. If Columbian drug lords can smuggle TONS of cocaine across the US border every year, it wouldn't be too hard for them to smuggle in a few dozen fully-automatic AK's, for the right price.

[JohnnyRingo]

3. Firearms?....Do they need firearms to execute an act of terror?

I don't think so.

Ask Tim McVeigh.

[VOX]

4. Can't be. We're supposed to be "safer."

Cheney pretty nearly guaranteed it.

Hah. :grr:

[KG]

5. why would a terrorist bother to legally buy firearms when they could

equip a brigade with some serious weaponry from the arms black market right here in the good ol USA?

[NickofTime]

6. Who gets put on the "terrorist List"?

Seems to me anybody that the Bushsht*tters don't like can make the list. I vote for the Second Amendment and innocent until proven guilty. After all, box cutters, not guns, were the initiating weapons in the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks.

[slackmaster]

9. Other questions about those "terror lists"

Who keeps the lists, and where?

Once on a terror list, how does an innocent person get his or her name cleared?

Seems to me anybody that the Bushsht*tters don't like can make the list.

That's about the size of it.

[slackmaster]

7. Dupe topic - Already being discussed in LBN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1292598&mesg_id=1292598