Three individuals on the US government’s terrorist watch list that forbids suspects from flying were able to go ahead with a federal background check to buy explosives under rules that the Republican party refused to overturn in the wake of the San Bernardino attack.



Latest government figures reveal that three names on the watch list of people suspected of assisting or engaging in terrorism applied for explosives checks between 2004 and 2014 through the national instant background check system (NICS). In all three instances, the individuals were allowed to go ahead with the checks.

On Thursday night, a day after the San Bernardino attacks in which 14 people were killed, the Democratic US senator Dianne Feinstein brought an amendment that would have put an end to a regulation that has become a symbol of America’s lax gun laws and Republican intransigence towards tightening them up. It would have banned known or suspected terrorists from buying guns or explosives, in the same way as they are prohibited from flying.

On Friday, the FBI confirmed that it was investigating the San Bernardino attack as an “act of terrorism”. Earlier in the day, it was reported that one of the two shooters, Tashfeen Malik, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

All but one of the 54 Republicans in the US senate – Mark Kirk of Illinois – voted against the amendment on Thursday, thereby permitting anyone on the terror watch list to continue applying to purchase guns. Those voting down the reform included all four Republican senators who are running to succeed President Obama in the White House: Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.

The three explosives checks are revealed in a footnote to the latest figures compiled by the US Government Accountability Office. The same records show that in the 10 years up to 2014 some 2,233 people on the terror watch list applied for a federal background check to buy guns or explosives, and of those 2,043 were allowed to proceed.



“If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous to buy a gun,” Feinstein said after Thursday’s vote. “Unfortunately that common sense idea failed to attract enough votes to pass the Senate.”

The senator added that the failure of her amendment was proof that Congress was a hostage to the gun lobby. The largest pro-gun group, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has consistently campaigned against any attempt to block individuals on the terror watch list from acquiring firearms.

Under the terms of the NICS background checks, anyone is eligible to purchase a firearm unless they have a criminal record, are a fugitive or drug addict, have been committed to a mental institution, are undocumented or have a conviction for domestic violence. The identity of the three terror watch list individuals is not known, nor whether an explosives permit was granted as dealers are not required to report such information to the FBI.

No background checks at all are needed to buy a gun online or through gun shows – another loophole that Democratic senators also tried to close on Thursday to no avail having similarly prompted almost unanimous opposition by Republicans. Only four of the 54 Republican senators voted on Thursday in favour of applying the checks.

Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who co-sponsored a similar failed attempt at gun reform in the wake of the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, was joined by Susan Collins of Maine, Mark Kirk of Illinois and John McCain of Arizona.

The almost blanket opposition to greater gun controls – even in the wake of the bloodiest mass shooting since Newtown – underlined the hardline position that the Republican party has come to adopt over the second amendment.

Both measures were introduced by the Democrats as a means of casting light on the almost rock-solid hostility of the modern Republican party to gun controls.

It was not always like that. Ronald Reagan, a figure of worship for many modern conservatives, was far more amenable to the idea of intervention to reduce the carnage. The late president, also a former governor of California, was profoundly influenced in his thinking on firearms by the assassination attempt on his life in 1981 that injured him and left his press secretary Jim Brady paralyzed.

In 1994, Reagan joined fellow former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in writing a letter to the Boston Globe in which they backed a ban on assault rifles.

It is not coincidental that the shift from Reagan’s relatively moderate stance on guns to the Republican party’s hard line today is mirrored by an identical trajectory shown by the NRA. As Adam Winkler of UCLA has shown, the NRA in the 1920s and 30s was a leading proponent of gun control laws.

Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center and an authority on the NRA, said the group’s moderate position came to an abrupt end in 1977 when it sharply changed tack under the leadership of Harlon Carter. “From then on the NRA dropped its focus on sporting activities and concentrated primarily on politics,” Sugarmann said.

Over the past 20 years the NRA and the Republican party have moved in concert towards increasingly rigid policies opposing any gun controls. Their combined strength has seen the rolling back of even the meagre regulations that were in place, including the lapsing in 2004 of the assault weapons ban that Reagan had supported.