The all purpose terrorism thread featuring plenty of allah akbar

[Mittelwaechter]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Aye, first politician to get killed by a non-Irish person in 204 years, and the first one to be killed full stop in 16 years.
Looks to be a mentally unstable chap who ate more referendum than he could digest. Horrific stuff really, and there'll be a lot of questions asked about how it was allowed to happen and how it did happen.
A sad day for the UK.

Imagine our media coverage, the victim would have been a Russian opposition member, killed on a bridge in Moscow.

I guess Cameron isn't somehow connected to this lonely, menatlly unstable chap, right? Is the guy Christian?

[Von Due]

Can someone fill me in here? Either I'm not getting the obvious or they have gone full on insane.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36563337

It's ok to allow people on terrorist watch lists to buy guns without having to at least notify the authorities? How does that add up? They WANT these things to happen or what? Someone fill me in on what it is I'm not getting.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Can someone fill me in here? Either I'm not getting the obvious or they have gone full on insane.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36563337

It's ok to allow people on terrorist watch lists to buy guns without having to at least notify the authorities? How does that add up? They WANT these things to happen or what? Someone fill me in on what it is I'm not getting.

Because then every citizen would be put on the list, so the Feds could take away their guns. Somehow the UN is also involved and a couple of Jewish dentists too.

Have you been living under a rock or something?

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Because then every citizen would be put on the list, so the Feds could take away their guns. Somehow the UN is also involved and a couple of Jewish dentists too.

Have you been living under a rock or something?

That is the arguement but seriously, it is hard to imagine how people can actually believe it to be a sensible arguement. It's like they don't consider consequences to be part of reality.

How can they on one hand say they're fighting terrorism while saying hey, we have good reasons to think you plan on attacking somewhere but here's your gun and don't worry, the feds won't know about it? The absurdity is mindboggling.

[August]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Can someone fill me in here? Either I'm not getting the obvious or they have gone full on insane.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36563337

It's ok to allow people on terrorist watch lists to buy guns without having to at least notify the authorities? How does that add up? They WANT these things to happen or what? Someone fill me in on what it is I'm not getting.

It's called Due Process.

Basically it means that you can't just take rights away from people, especially ones enumerated in the Constitution, without allowing them some form or means of redress in the courts if it was applied in error (or spite). The Democrats refuse to allow that corrective ability in this situation and the Republicans can't add it in without their support.

Remember the Terrorist Watch List is a secret list of names maintained by anonymous bureaucrats who can't be held accountable for their actions. Once a person is added to the list, even by mistake, whether its a clerical error or any other reason (including spite), there is currently no way for the victim to even find out they have been added, why they were added or who put them on it. They can't even petition the courts to their names removed from it.

What's just as bad at that is none of the proposed legislation would have stopped the Orlando terrorist as he had already been removed from the Watch list. In other words they're trying to do something they already know wouldn't work. Makes you wonder the true reasons for proposing it.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by August

It's called Due Process.

Basically it means that you can't just take rights away from people, especially ones enumerated in the Constitution, without allowing them some form or means of redress in the courts if it was applied in error (or spite). The Democrats refuse to allow that corrective ability in this situation and the Republicans can't add it in without their support.

Remember the Terrorist Watch List is a secret list of names maintained by anonymous bureaucrats who can't be held accountable for their actions. Once a person is added to the list, even by mistake, whether its a clerical error or any other reason (including spite), there is currently no way for the victim to even find out they have been added, why they were added or who put them on it. They can't even petition the courts to their names removed from it.

What's just as bad at that is none of the proposed legislation would have stopped the Orlando terrorist as he had already been removed from the Watch list. In other words they're trying to do something they already know wouldn't work. Makes you wonder the true reasons for proposing it.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by August

It's called Due Process.

Basically it means that you can't just take rights away from people, especially ones enumerated in the Constitution, without allowing them some form or means of redress in the courts if it was applied in error (or spite). The Democrats refuse to allow that corrective ability in this situation and the Republicans can't add it in without their support.

Remember the Terrorist Watch List is a secret list of names maintained by anonymous bureaucrats who can't be held accountable for their actions. Once a person is added to the list, even by mistake, whether its a clerical error or any other reason (including spite), there is currently no way for the victim to even find out they have been added, why they were added or who put them on it. They can't even petition the courts to their names removed from it.

What's just as bad at that is none of the proposed legislation would have stopped the Orlando terrorist as he had already been removed from the Watch list. In other words they're trying to do something they already know wouldn't work. Makes you wonder the true reasons for proposing it.

Then wouldn't the way be to open up for openness around those lists? I totally see that total secrecy isn't going to increase people's trust in those bureaucrats. They are hit by a no trust sentiment and they aren't doing much to improve that right now and the congress is working overtime to increase that mistrust.

One problem with openness though is, if there is an unrestricted openness then anyone who is on the list can check and go sleeping until they're off the list, which pretty much defeats the purpose of the list in the first place. Even worse, it will give away to individuals and organizations that the law and intelligence agencies are onto them. Revealing that can be literally deadly. Unrestricted openness won't work but some kind of openness is needed.

I don't believe for a second that humans can not figure out how to have a working system here. One step that would be absolutely necessary would be to open up for some kind of openness. The Congress blocking that openness is insane in that regard.

As for lists and faceless bureaucrats: Anyone with a phone, anyone with a credit card, anyone with a job, anyone who is paying taxes, anyone with a car, or a home, is on a number of lists they don't have access to. Anyone using the internet is on a number of lists. The President of the USA. There, those words are all it takes for this post to be logged for further examination and there is a chance it will be logged on a list and looked at automatically by computers. Lists are everywhere for almost anything. If one don't want any list of any kind that is secret, the only way is to move to another planet.

The Constitution is the main arguement and the 2nd amendment in particular. One thing is, an unrestricted and fundamentalistic view on these will have the consequence of terrorists and nutcases getting the weapons they need while making it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to act before tragedy strikes. There is no way around that. The vote, as it is now, opens the doors wide for lone wolves and organizations to hit with minimum or no warning. That is an unavoidable consequence of the vote. In fact it has been the unavoidable consequence since day 1. Question is, can the US afford this fundamentalistic view on a right that certainly is given to terrorists and sound minded folks alike?

I live in Norway and we had in our Constitution the law that said Jews, monks and Jesuits were forbidden to enter the country (really, we did, §2). We got rid of it in 1851, because it's madness to have such a paragraph. We got rid of a paragraph that only did harm to people and nothing good to anyone. Now, this was here in Norway, not the US but even Constitutions are not eternally set in stone. If there is a paragraph or amendment that doesn't work, then all it takes to get rid of that is will to get rid of it. I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon in the US but who knows what will happen in the future. What's written by humans can be changed by humans.

[vienna]

The fellow who recently tried to wrest away the gun of a police officer at a Trump rally and then made statements he did so in an effort to kill Trump is from Britain. Can we expect the imposition of a ban on Brits entering the US in an effort to stem such actions? Wonder what religion he espouses; perhaps that should also be looked into...



<O>

[Oberon]

I figured we would be under the ban anyway, since we also include Northern Ireland and...well...

[August]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Then wouldn't the way be to open up for openness around those lists? I totally see that total secrecy isn't going to increase people's trust in those bureaucrats. They are hit by a no trust sentiment and they aren't doing much to improve that right now and the congress is working overtime to increase that mistrust.

It's not just trust that is at issue here or openness and it's not just the 2nd Amendment. Terrorist Watch Lists could be considered unconstitutional themselves for a variety of reasons not the least of which they deprive people of their freedom without allowing them the right to defend themselves in a court of law.

If there is a paragraph or amendment that doesn't work, then all it takes to get rid of that is will to get rid of it. I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon in the US but who knows what will happen in the future. What's written by humans can be changed by humans.

There is a method to change an amendment. It's called a Constitutional Convention but like you say there is no will to do it right so the government tries to go around it by making secret lists.

I don't care how many lists there are out there, when they're used to get around peoples rights then they must be fought and never ever accepted.

[Oberon]

That being said, you can't argue that the ability of domestic terrorists to gain easy access to firearms to kill American citizens is a problem.
The snag comes when you try to deal with that problem without creating a system that is open to potential abuse or subtracting a constitutional right from citizens who are not terrorists.

Perhaps this is one for the old Firearms control thread?

[vienna]

Point of clarification and facts: a Constitutional Convention is not required to amend or repeal any amendment to the US Constitution. Since the first Constitutional Convention, there have not been any other Conventions:

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/

This is basic civics as taught in US schools...



<O>

[August]

Originally Posted by vienna

Point of clarification and facts: a Constitutional Convention is not required...

I didn't claim that it was but you knew that already...

This is basic civics as taught in US schools...

Very Tribesmanlike of you to point that out.

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

That being said, you can't argue that the ability of domestic terrorists to gain easy access to firearms to kill American citizens is a problem.

Or their ability to create deadly bombs out of pressure cookers, cargo trucks and jet aircraft.

The snag comes when you try to deal with that problem without creating a system that is open to potential abuse or subtracting a constitutional right from citizens who are not terrorists.

Made even worse by those who would use the situation to rid the American people of those pesky rights and freedoms that keep getting in the way of maintaining proper order. I can see no other reason for proposals that obviously would do nothing to prevent terrorists from obtaining the tools to commit their acts of of murder and mayhem.

[Von Due]

I have to say, I really wasn't suggesting that simply allowing for such lists would be the one step needed. The terrorism issue can not be solved in a few steps. It is a massive jigsaw puzzle where national politics, global politics, global economy, local economies, power, riches, poverty, acceptance for violence, non-acceptance for violence, religions, education, knowledge, news outlets and their pitch, medicine, alliances, propaganda vs reality, resources and who should own those resources, mistrust, trust, invasions, etc etc etc etc are pieces or issues.

The problem is that all these issues have to be looked at. They are all interconnected. In the last 15 years it has been presented as a pure religious issue by politicians, news, priests and mullahs, or it has been presented as purely one of the other issues. Oil, revenge, Bush, Obama, take your pick but you can only pick one.

There are issues that need to be solved that are seen as holy cows, almost taboo. There are issues one want to present as the only issue. That is perhaps the greatest challenge, to say no more holy cows, bring everything to the table and leave personal, short sighted interests behind.

The gun issue is one of these pieces but it is by no means the only piece, not even the biggest. It's just one more piece to the puzzle.