Tyranny For Dummies

strip them of their citizenship.

unconstitutional

Lindsay Graham: [speaking of restricting people on the terrorist watch list from buying automatic weapons] this is not going in the right direction because we're dealing with a constitutional right. And I am very concerned about the gaps in our defenses. But maybe I'm not making a good argument to you but it makes perfect sense to me that losing the ability to own a gun which is a constitutional right using this list the way it's constructed is unnerving at best.

O'Donnell: The question is, if you are on a terrorist watch list, can the government step in a stop you from buying a weapon when it goes through the typical process of having those background checks? And at present the answer is no. They may identify it, they may watch that person and we've been told today that more than eleven hundred times since 2004 and 2010, someone who is on a watch list has bought a firearm in the United States. They have not been able to tell is there is any tie between any of those persons and those who get accused of actually committing some act of terror.

O'Donnell: But as you heard Lindsay Graham, who is an expert on this because he serves in the Air Force as a lawyer and the JAG and has studied a lot of this, gun issues are tough.



So they highlighted an issue. There is a lot of concern from the conservative side that United States citizens could be in a situation where they would not be able to get a gun. We also know there are circumstances that already exist where there are restrictions for mental problems or felons and those kinds of things. This is a new area where they are trying to tie terrorist watch lists to limiting gun access. And it was certainly a way to air it out. But they are far from being able to resolve this kind of issue.

Mitchell: And the chairman of the committee, Joe Lieberman, he also suggested that he thinks it's time to strip someone who's under a watch list of their citizenship. We heard John McCain say earlier today that there should not have been the mirandizing so there are a lot of what critics of the administration are going to be saying, Republicans are going to be raising a whole lot of issues



O'Donnell: All about how you would proceed. Especially if one is a naturalized citizen as was the case in the Times Square incident. Could you pull away some of the rights that we as American citizens would have? That's part of what is prompting Lieberman's comments. And if you were even a natural born citizen and would commit what they said would be an act of treason would you then forfeit your citizenship benefits?



And there was a discussion today that under one set of facts a citizen could be determined to be an enemy combatant, a classification that gives the government some different avenues to go through prosecution. These are really tough issue because they go right to the heart of the constitution and right to current day events that have everyone on edge.

accused

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