Gun purchases legal for those on US terror watchlists

More than 90 percent of attempted firearm
purchases by suspected terrorists in US
succeed, report finds

“America is absolutely awash with easily
obtainable firearms.”
Such was the proclamation of Adam Gadahn,
a United States citizen who, as a spokesman
for Al-Qaeda, released a series of videos
encouraging violence against Western
targets. The one encouraging followers in the
U.S. to buy guns was made in 2011 and
highlighted by NPR in 2013 . Gadahn was
reportedly killed in January by a CIA drone
strike, but his words of encouragement to
aspiring attackers still resonate today.
In the wake of the deadly attacks in Paris,
which are being attributed to the Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), questions
have been asked about how easily this kind
of attack could be replicated in the U.S.
Specific attention has been paid to the
assault-style weapons used in those attacks,
reportedly Kalashnikovs or AK-47s. Could
potential attackers, known to authorities (as
some of the French suspects were), get their
hands on such weaponry on this side of the
Atlantic?
The answer is: quite probably yes.
"Membership in a terrorist organization does
not prohibit a person from possessing
firearms or explosives under current federal
law," according to a 2010 report from the
Government Accountability Office (PDF) .
As the Washington Post noted Monday, the
law prohibits felons, fugitives, drug addicts
and domestic abusers from purchasing guns,
but not people on the FBI’s Terrorist
Watchlist, a compendium of several
government databases designed to track
known or suspected terrorists and those with
close ties to them.
According to the GAO, as reported by the
Post, “Between 2004 and 2014, suspected
terrorists attempted to purchase guns from
American dealers at least 2,233 times. And in
2,043 of those cases — 91 percent of the
time — they succeeded.” (That number is
likely higher. The Post story says a computer
error caused an undercount in 2011 and
2012.)
It is a problem that has been on the radar of
lawmakers for a least a decade. In 2005,
then-FBI director Robert Mueller told a House
Appropriations subcommittee that he believed
that appearing in a terrorism database should
be added to the list of nine other criteria that
would prevent the legal purchase of firearms.
In 2007, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.,
introduced legislation that tried to close what
he called the “terror gap” by allowing the
Attorney General to deny gun sales to those
found “to be or have been engaged in
conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid
of, or related to terrorism.” It was a move
backed by Bush administration Attorney
General Alberto Gonzalez.
Lautenberg reintroduced the legislation in
2008, and co-authored similar legislation in
2009 with Republican Rep. Peter King of New
York.
Each time, the proposed laws failed to get
out of Congress after staunch opposition
from the National Rifle Association. The NRA
has consistently argued that such laws
prevent legal gun purchases but don’t stop
people from acquiring firearms illegally.
Jonas Oransky, legal counsel at Everytown
for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for
stricter gun laws, sees the lawful gun sales
now permitted to terror suspects as a big
enough threat to require federal action. “The
terror gap poses an unacceptable danger to
public safety and should be closed
immediately,” he told Al Jazeera in an email.
Legislation similar to Lautenberg’s bill was
introduced earlier this year. Sponsored by
King and Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., the
“Denying Firearms and Explosives to
Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015 ” included
provisions allowing those denied a purchase
to challenge the prohibition if they believe
they were wrongly placed on a terror
watchlist. But that bill remains stalled in the
Senate.
And now the ready availability of guns has
become part of the emerging debate over
accepting Syrian refugees. Texas State Rep.
Tony Dale, a Republican, sent letters to
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. John
Cornyn (PDF) , also Republicans, warning that
they should not allow refugees to settle in
the state because the documentation they
would be granted would allow the
immigrants to gain employment, enter federal
buildings, board commercial aircraft and, as
Dale makes special note of in light of the
Paris attacks, purchase firearms.
“Can you imagine a scenario were [sic] a
refugees [sic] is admitted to the United
States ... obtains a drivers license and
purchases a weapon and executes an
attack?” Dale wrote.
There is an additional legislative gap that
seems applicable. The Public Safety and
Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act,
more commonly known as the Assault
Weapons Ban, expired in 2004. Repeated
attempts to revive it have been met with
staunch opposition from the NRA similar to
the pushback on terrorism legislation. The
sale and manufacture of the AK-47-style
weapons used in the Paris attacks were
specifically prohibited by this law.
Flaws in the FBI’s terrorism watchlists —
which have reportedly grown to include more
than 700,000 people — are infamous. Many
on the lists turn out to be distant relatives or
acquaintances with no direct ties to terrorist
groups. Some are just unlucky enough to
have a similar name to other suspects. It is
problems like this that have alarmed civil
libertarians and fueled firearms advocates’
objections to linking a watchlist with gun
ownership.
But inclusion on the FBI terrorism list already
blocks far more mundane activities than
weapons purchase. And the vast majority —
76 percent — of gun owners (including 71
percent of NRA members) supports
prohibitions on firearms purchases by people
on the federal terrorism watchlist , according
to a survey by Republican pollster Frank
Luntz.
“After September 11th, common sense
dictates that the federal government stop
gun sales to suspects on the terrorist watch
list,” said Rep. King in a statement coinciding
with the introduction of his legislation in
February. After the Paris attacks, many are
likely to feel that sense even more strongly.