PA Bill Number: HB2311
Title: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program.
Description: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program. ...
Last Action: Laid on the table
Last Action Date: Sep 23, 2024
Congressional Democrats Clueless on Gun Bills - Dems v. the ACLU. :: 06/27/2016
Congressional Democrats emerged from the Capitol building Thursday afternoon from their 25-hour long "sit-in" in the House of Representatives sleepy but satisfied with what they'd accomplished.
They may not have secured a vote on gun control legislation they were demanding in the wake of the Orlando terror attack, but they had grabbed headlines across the media that portrayed the their gun control ploy as a historic civil rights crusade. To the tune of "We Shall Overcome," members of the Democratic caucus sang outside the Capitol: "We shall pass a bill, some day."
But there was a glaring flaw in the gun-control-as-civil-rights narrative: The ACLU had condemned the Democrats' top gun control initiative as antithetical to constitutional rights to due process. The Democratic proposal to allow the attorney general to ban the transfer of a firearm to any person suspected of terrorism relied on a standard that is "vague and overbroad, which raises significant concerns about arbitrary and discriminatory government action," according to a letter from the ACLU.
The left-leaning civil liberties organization further said of the measure sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California: "With respect to remedial procedures and judicial review, the amendment does not ensure basic due process protections." Although the Democratic amendment would not rely solely on an American citizen' presence on a terrorism watch list as the basis for denying a gun to that person, the ACLU expressed concern it would likely create a "new 'watchlist' broader than any that currently exists—in fact, so broad that It would include even persons long ago cleared of any wrongdoing by law enforcement."
What did congressional Democrats have to say about the ACLU's concerns? Not much at all. In fact, not a single Democratic member of Congress who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD this week had even read the ACLU's letter.
"I haven't looked at their concerns specifically," said New Jersey senator Cory Booker.
"I haven't looked at them in great detail," said Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy. "I know they have some objections to them."
"No, I have not," said South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn when asked if he'd heard about the ACLU's objections.
More than a dozen members of Congress who spoke to TWS were similarly unable to explain why they opposed the Republican alternative to the Feinstein amendment. "What Republican alternative? I've not seen that," said Democratic congressman Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania. "We're hoping that Speaker Ryan puts some bills on this floor. At least the Senate's getting the vote. I don't know what the Cornyn amendment is."
The GOP measure, sponsored by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, would allow the government to delay gun purchases by 72 hours for those suspected of terrorism and allow the government to block the sale and arrest the individual upon a showing of "probable cause" to a judge—the same legal standard necessary for a warrant—that the suspect was involved in terrorism. The Cornyn amendment won the backing of the NRA, but the ACLU still opposed it as failing to protect civil rights.
But the Democratic measure plainly presents greater constitutional problems than the Republican one. The Feinstein amendment—as well as a pared-down version sponsored by Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine—relies on the lower legal standard of reasonable suspicion to deny gun purchases. It also puts the burden on the individual to challenge the government's decision.
New Jersey senator Cory Booker defended relying upon reasonable suspicion to deny gun purchases to American citizens, calling it a "temporary pause on their Second Amendment rights."
"When it comes to a police officer stopping you, taking away your liberty to move, the standard for that is not probable cause, it's justifiable suspicion," Booker told TWS Thursday afternoon. "We allow curtailments of our basic rights for brief periods of time in order to protect public safety."
But the day before, Utah senator Mike Lee argued in remarks on the Senate floor that a that a central flaw of watch list gun bans was that they would rely on "mere suspicion" to deny American citizens their Second Amendment rights indefinitely—not temporarily.
Lee acknowledged that under the legislation sponsored by Susan Collins, an American citizen could challenge the government's ruling in court, but "the government would end up winning, as I read the proposal. It would end up winning based on this same reasonable suspicion standard." Lee explained that although reasonable suspicion is the threshold necessary for a police officer to pull someone over, "that stop may continue only for so long as it takes for the officer to confirm or refute the initial basis for the suspicion. Usually that means not very long."
So the constitutional implications of enacting gun bans proposed by Dianne Feinstein or Susan Collins are vast. If reasonable suspicion may be used to deny American citizens their Second Amendment rights, could the same standard be used to justify indefinite detention of U.S. citizens? If the government can deny a American citizens the right to buy a gun without probable cause, couldn't the government also listen to listen to their phone calls or read the emails without probable cause? Harry Reid dismissed this question on June 14 as "foolishness" without even attempting to explain why it was foolish.
Jim Clyburn, a member of the House Democratic leadership, similarly dismissed the question without much of an explanation on Thursday. "I think you're talking about the Fourth amendment. We're talking about the Second Amendment," Clyburn said. He likened the gun control provision to saying that the First Amendment didn't protect someone shouting "fire" in a movie theater.
Clyburn, who was arrested protesting for civil rights in the 1960s, then argued that people who had been investigated but cleared by the FBI should have their Second Amendment rights denied:
CLYBURN: This guy in Orlando had been investigated by the FBI twice. And his name was cleared. But guess what? I was cleared by the Supreme Court in 1963 for my 1961 arrests. But every now and then somebody finds it. It turns up. So my arrests from 1960-1961 are still somewhere for people to question me about it. Why can't we question—
THE WEEKLY STANDARD: So if someone's been cleared, they should be on a list and be denied a gun sale?
CLYBURN: For a period of time, yes.
When asked, Clyburn did not say how many years someone should be denied the right to purchase a gun merely for being investigated by the FBI.
Democrats have ended their sit-in, but they have given every indication that they will press their case for a terror watch list gun ban from now until the election. It's not hard to see why. Polls indicate that a "terror watch list gun ban" enjoys overwhelming support among American voters. Of course, popularity doesn't make legislation wise or constitutional. The Independence Day break presents a good opportunity for members of Congress to read the bills they want to vote on, study objections from the ACLU and other civil libertarians, and, while they're at it, maybe even read the Bill of Rights.
John McCormack is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Alice B. Lloyd contributed to this report.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/congressional-democrats-clueless-on-gun-bills/article/2003032
