Just over two weeks after the June 12, 2016, Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) supported Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) push for an expansion of gun control that would violate due process.
CNN described Feinstein’s gun control as an attempt “to bar all gun sales to those individuals on the terror watch list.” They noted that she first pushed the controls after the December 2, 2015, San Bernardino attack, then revived the push following the shooting at Orlando Pulse. They did not mention the fact that Feinstein’s controls, even if they had been law, would not have prevented San Bernardino or the Orlando Pulse attack from happening, because none of the attackers were on a terror watch list.
Yet Tester voted for Feinstein’s gun control.
Beyond the obvious fact that the gun control would not have worked, because the attackers were not on a watch list, there is the greater concern that Feinstein’s controls would run roughshod over American’s due process rights. Consider two points: 1. Barring suspects from buying guns is the equivalent to presuming guilt before innocence and not the other way around. 2. Making matters worse, the terror watch list, and related no-fly list, is so unreliable–frequently misidentifying suspects–that individuals who were never suspects to begin with could be denied the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights for self-defense.
But Feinstein supported it, along with gun control Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Harry Reid (D-NV), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Montana’s Jon Tester.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.