No Fly Watch Lists and the 2nd Amendment

Mad Dog

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
--2nd Amendment


Mad Dog does not believe the 2nd Amendment gives individual citizens the right to own a gun. It is the only place in the Constitution where an explanation for a right granted "the people" is provided--the reason we say this right exists is to provide members of a militia their guns.  

Freedom  Package for Christmas in the name of the Prince of Peace

BUT,  there is another amendment, the 5th amendment, which says nobody shall be deprived of private property without "due process of law."  And that's where Mad Dog finds himself with strange bedfellows. How does a citizen find himself on a "watch list"  and by what process is he denied the ability to travel without a hearing or even knowing who his accusers are or on what basis they have acted to put his name on a list?

Now this star chamber list, of secret origins, is being extended to include other behaviors beyond getting on an airplane, like buying a gun.

I can only agree with that gun loving 2nd Amendment type who objects to being denied the right tohis precious gun because some nameless bureaucrat has put his name on a list. This smacks of the worse abuses of oppressive governments.

Of course, the gun lovers will have to agree their argument would mean the end of the "no fly lists" which may or may not mean terrorists can board and blow up their airplanes, but that is their right. Live free or die, and die.  

Mad Dog goes to the airport and sometimes finds himself whisked ahead of other passengers because his name has, for this flight only, been mysteriously placed on a "TSA pre-check"  list, again for reasons known only to the government, without any explanation.

From the paranoid view of the gun clingers, all the government has to do to deny them the right to buy new guns is to slap them on the no fly list, without notification, trial or explanation and millions could, conceivably, be denied access to their holy implements, those instruments of a vengeful God, those freedom sticks, the guns. 

Don't like those guys, but they certainly do have a point and you have to respect that.