The Associated Press reports that 247 people on the terror watch list were allowed to buy guns legally in 2010:
It is not illegal for people listed on the government's terror watch list to buy weapons. This has bothered New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg for years. He is trying again to change the law to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists.
The secret, fluid nature of the watch list has made it challenging to close what Lautenberg called a "terror gap" in the nation's gun laws.
For gun control advocates, focusing on the terror watch list allows them to make incremental progress on an issue the Obama administration has largely avoided. Americans have been willing to roll back other freedoms when policies are framed as protecting the country from terrorism, and attempts to prevent those on the terror watch list from buy guns may strike a chord.
The terror watch list however, is an absurdly bloated "tool" for preventing terrorism. A 2007 Inspector General's report revealed that there were more than 700,000 people on the list, and the ACLU estimates that now there may be more than a million. That 247 number sounds a lot less significant when you consider that it's less than a fraction of a percent of the number of people who may be on the watch list, and even more so given that the more relevant number would be the number of people on the watch list who acquired weapons and then actually tried to carry out a terror attack.
The Supreme Court says that being able to own a weapon for self-defense is a constitutional right. Any legislation that would bar people on the list from buying weapons are therefore having their constitutional rights curtailed without much evidence that they are dangerous or have even committed a crime. While it might be more politically advantageous territory for gun control advocates to fight on, it harms the basic presumption of innocence already under threat by the way we approach counterterrorism. Given that most gun control advocates are liberals who care deeply about due process in other matters, it seems counterproductive to attack it here.
