Anti-terrorism has it limits. You didn't expect it would interfere with the fancied "rights" of gun nuts, did you? :
With this White House? This attorney general? Get serious.
"The FBI wanted to check whether any of the 1,200 people detained after the Sept. 11
attacks had bought guns. It was a reasonable thing to want to know.
At least two names of detainees showed up, sources said, before Ashcroft's ideological-purity
assurance task force in the Justice Department ruled that the cross-checks violated the law
establishing the background inquiries. A senior FBI official appealed the ruling and was told
the same thing. More translation: Look, we're talking about
the REPUBLICAN BASE, SO SHOVE OFF.".
By Cragg Hines
Houston Chronicle
After prying loose several keystones of the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism, John Ashcroft's Justice Department suddenly
choked on giving the FBI access to the cursory federal background checks on gun buyers.
Not allowed, Ashcroft said. Want to allow it?, he was asked. Hypothetical, he said. Want to submit legislation to allow it? Happy to
consider any legislation, Ashcroft digressed. Translation: Drop dead.
How predictable. Just another reason why he should never have been made the nation's chief law enforcement officer.
The FBI wanted to check whether any of the 1,200 people detained after the Sept. 11 attacks had bought guns. It was a reasonable thing to
want to know.
At least two names of detainees showed up, sources said, before Ashcroft's ideological-purity assurance task force in the Justice
Department ruled that the cross-checks violated the law establishing the background inquiries. A senior FBI official appealed the ruling
and was told the same thing. More translation: Look, we're talking about the Republican base, so shove off.
This was, at best, a new interpretation of the law and meant that in the midst of the supposedly all-out war on terrorism, the Department
of Justice adopted an unnecessarily restrictive stance.
"You're looking for new tools in every direction...," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told Ashcroft Thursday during a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing. "But when it comes to the area of even illegal immigrants getting guns and finding out if they did, this administration
becomes as weak as a wet noodle."
This is a Justice Department and administration that has detained hundreds of Arab and Muslim suspects on charges unrelated to
terrorism, has refused to identify most of the detainees and has held many of them incommunicado, has allowed federal eavesdropping
on communications between attorney and client, has moved to create military tribunals that could order executions without a
unanimous vote and without real judicial review.
Some of these measures are justified and some are not. But they illustrate the administration's generally robust attitude in sailing close to
the wind on due-process and other constitutional questions. But, oh mercy me, not when it comes to guns.
Ashcroft had swallowed some gnats and gagged on an AK-47. It was as expectable as it was blatant. During his years in the U.S. Senate as a
Republican from Missouri (which ended last year when he was defeated by a dead Democrat), Ashcroft opposed every serious
gun-control measure on which he ever voted. The National Rifle Association would say "Jump!" and Ashcroft would ask "How high?" He's
brought that act into the Justice Department.
President Bush's anti-terrorism campaign, including the legal maneuvers, currently enjoys broad public support. The White House and
Ashcroft know they can do about anything they want if it's pictured as a move to prevent another Sept. 11-like attack.
The numbers emboldened Ashcroft in his testimony before a generally toothless committee awed more by polls than the Constitution.
(Never a real contest, you understand.) Ashcroft wasn't content to stonewall on the several legitimate due-process issues raised (ever so
gently) by senators. He thought a pre-emptive bit of intimidation was in order:
"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists."
This sort of bully-boy performance should have been answered with "Have you no shame?" But the historically apposite question seemed
not to come to any senator's mind. Not even when Ashcroft waggled what he said was an al-Qaeda training manual in which he said
"terrorist are taught how to use America's freedoms as a weapon against us."
But what about being taught to acquire guns? Ashcroft apparently sees nothing wrong with that sort of education. The attorney general
wouldn't even want the records of his own department checked to see if Osama bin Laden had bought a Saturday night special.
The stagily religious Ashcroft has always seemed to believe that Americans are too free to exercise their freedoms, unless of course it's
the cherished possession of firearms -- for which he blindly refuses to see any room for possible abuse. As with many of his views,
Ashcroft has only two settings when it come to guns, "off" and "zealot."
Hines is a Houston Chronicle columnist based in Washington, D.C. (cragg.hines@chron.com) |
