Lax gun laws help terrorists

http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/268/oped/Lax_gun_laws_help_terrorists+.shtml


By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Staff, 9/25/2001

WASHINGTON


THE DAY BEFORE the United States was attacked this month, there was a revealing jury verdict in Detroit that demonstrates not only how porous this country is for terrorists but also what a genuinely bipartisan response to the serious threat should look like.


On Sept. 10, in what was as close to an open-and-shut case as you can get, two brothers were convicted on a variety of federal weapons law violations plus conspiracy to ship stuff to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.


The weapons and ammunition they almost succeeded in smuggling abroad included numerous items purchased at gun shows - the ideal shopping mall for criminals in general and terrorists in particular and one that has been used repeatedly for a decade.


As if anyone needs reminding of how a crook-friendly system operates in the United States, one of those brothers (with a red-flag felony record on a previous grand theft rap) could go shopping at gun shows in Michigan because federal and state law does not require that thorough background checks on would-be weapons buyers be completed before such sales by unlicensed ''dealers.''


Just for the record, Ali Boumelhem was arrested in November of last year before he could depart with a one-way ticket back to Lebanon, along with his brother Mohamed.


According to press reports and the court record, the arrest came after lengthy surveillance and the discovery on a Lebanon-bound ship of an auto parts container whose cargo included shotguns, ammunition, flash suppressors, assault weapons parts, and a police scanner.


His brother, with a previously clean record, could go shopping for his mass-murdering buddies at gun stores anywhere. But Ali, operating unchecked at gun shows, was special. The government surveillance of him included an informant sighting of him in Beirut unloading previous shipments of weapons and explosive as well as video of him firing automatic weapons in Lebanon and proclaiming his Hezbollah association (he's a leader in its Amal militia).


It is understandable in the wake of the mass murder here and in New York that the authorities are scrambling to begin seriously protecting American citizens (who comprise the front line in this new war) from spectacular assaults from the air or from other weapons of mass destruction.


But the federal authorities mobilizing around the clock are just as worried about the solitary suicide bomber or spray-shooter, especially now that the myth of American invulnerability to terrorism has been so decisively punctured.


For that kind of terrorism, the gun show is ideal. The issue now is whether ideology and politics can continue to keep it so.


From the FBI and the military to local police departments, the idea now is supposed to be that any facet of life in this country that facilitates mass murder must be scrutinized with fresh intolerance; after repeated warnings, homeland defense of our citizen front line is on its way to creation.

But when the Justice Department made its initial legislative recommendations to strengthen law enforcement, all the proposals dealt with detention of immigrants and intelligence gathering; Attorney General John Ashcroft, a progun fanatic, left alone the swiss cheese gun laws that made the Hezbollah operation in this country so easy.


The effort to close the ridiculous gun show loopholes is already bipartisan, pushed by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman. In the negotiations over new domestic security law, McCain-Lieberman belongs in the mix.


For those who have slept through the last few decades, bipartisanship is not our normal state of affairs. When it becomes essential, like right now, it doesn't simply descend from the heavens; it is constructed, painstakingly, on the ground. People who typically disagree take items off their own agendas and accept items from other's agendas for a greater, vital purpose. To work it takes a constant effort.


From the progressive world, there have already been a host of concessions, most notably the end for now of frontal assaults on President Bush's missile defense plans. There is also a serious attempt to negotiate domestic security proposals that are both flexible and respectful of the Constitution. It is difficult work, and there are concerns on the right as well, but the chances of consensus remain good.


It hardly endangers that consensus to add to these talks a virtual imperative to fix a ridiculous legal situation that makes it easy for terrorists to shop for the very instruments of their business.


Hezbollah is big-time terrorism. From its murky ranks came mass murders and hostage-taking of Americans in the region in the 1980s. Its targeting of Israelis today is despicable, and its state sponsorship from the likes of Iran and Syria is, if anything, more nearly overt than any assistance that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network receives.


Ultimately, any worldwide assault on terror networks with international tentacles that leaves Hezbollah standing would be a joke.


In the meantime, it's not too much to insist that we should make it much harder for terrorists to shop for weapons in this country.


Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is [email protected].


This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 9/25/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company

btt

Oliphant has always been a anti-gun asshole. Now he thinks he can use this, words fail. He should be dead, this isnt free and open debate, this is a personal assault on gun owners. You cant even rebut this outrage, there are no words in the English language for it.

Gee whiz, what happened to all of the flag waiving "patriotism"?

Pat asshole Oliphant never had any.  Don't you worry.

I don't believe there is a diaper head in this country that could walk out of a gun show or guns shop with a weapon ever again.

Gun shows are a hotbed for box cutter sales.
PS---what do you expect from a dickhead with a name like Oliphant...?

HA HA HA HA HA HA

YEAH! Like Hezbollah needs to shop at American gun shows!!!! HA HA HA HA

I am surprised that Chuck Schumer & Co haven't
budded up to Bush and tried to slip new gun grabbing laws already. Just up their slippery alley. The nice guy stuff is so phoney.  A week before the attack, Daschle & Gephardt were trashing Bush and calling him an idiot.  As soon as Bush's poll numbers drop, they will be
all over him.  Ditto Dan Rather, who really would have Gore in the White House. Case in point: the image of Hillary Clinton at the Bush speech. What a gruesome broad. John

Logic? With him? How?

Colonel, you lost the arguement with your first few sentences.  This guy is a LIBERAL.  The more government the better.  The only government he would fight is one that allows people to live their lives without intervention.

He considers you to be an idiot, because you interpret the 2nd amendment in that manner.  There can be no arguement with people like him.

The only thing he MIGHT understand is the right of minority women to have a means of self-defense.  You, ColonelKlink are the enemy of a free America.  Didn't you know that?

I'll give the US 25 more years, and civil war will break out.

You didn't think gun rights would escape the coming storm, did you?  I mean, really!

I doubt very much that anything obtained at a gun show here in the US is even half as good as what you can get in the open air arms bazaars in the Middle East. RPGs, PK machine guns, you name it.  The Hezbollah doesn't need to come to America to find whatever they need.  This guy Oliphant is a traitor.  

So Torf,  what will the sides be on the civil war?  If civil war broke out do you think the U.N. would step in to help the lefts?

Smalls

LCpl of Marines

LMAO,....So then, what he is saying is,...Middle eastern terrorists, who can obtain fully automatic AK 47s for next to nothing in their own back yard, are paying between $200, and $350 for neutered, semiautomatic Americanized AK 47s, at American gun shows, then paying whatever it costs to have them smuggled to the middle east.......Good Heavens! It sure is a good thing bayonet lugs are illegal on those rifles, or those terrorists would just be TOO heavily armed, and might take over the world.

The UN probably won't help out, they don't want to see either side win.  25% of the population will fight for the Constitution, while the other 25% will fight "Domestic Terrorism".  %50 won't fight.  That's the way it always is.

I suppose 30% of the nation might have to go to war with the UN someday.

Either there will be a war, there will be a return to the Constitution, or everyone will roll over and let tyrrany rule.

1. Pakistan manufactures weapons, including HK knock-off's

2. The people who sell their weapons at a gunshow without an FFL are selling their own property (supposedly, but thats why we have undercover ATF agents) what if they went to their house instead? or classifieds?

3. i would not think that under any circumstance would one sell a silencer at a gunshow to one who has not paid the transfer tax

4. Silencers are only but so complicated and could be homemade. since the Afganistans were able to produce their own AK during their war with the soviets, then they could potentially produce their own silencers.

5.  the Taliban is not likely to submit itself to background checks or registering a weapon in any country, much less here in the USSA. weapons can be acquired in a number of means including Chechnya or any other 3rd world crap hole.

6. during Veitnam, the Veitnamese had underground weapon factories. what would prevent any organized and motivated terrorist organization from building its own weapons from the ground up? i own a book that has pistol blueprints and How-to. i remember their being a book that shows you how to build a 9mm SMG using common parts from a hardware store. all costing less then $200 or so. 1 in 5 firearms confiscated in the Washington DC area are homemade. Ammunition does not take a rocket scientist to manufacture either. something terrorist could procure from Iraq as well.

statement making lib

I think we should email bomb him with the facts.  here is my letter to him:

Just read your sad piece on gun shows and terrorist.  Have you given any thought to the possible outcome if law-abiding citizens had firearms aboard the terrorist's flights?

Have you noticed that EVERY state that has tight gun laws have high crime rates while states with the most relaxed laws have the lowest crime rates?

Hmmmm.. kinda makes you think... or does it?

UHHHHH?

(Pangea raises his hand in the back of the class)

"If the terrorist weren't allowed to be in this country, then they couldn't buy guns at gun shows".

btt

Oh, yeah. Stricter control at gun shows would have stopped those attacks COLD, boy!

HEEEEEELLLLLOOOOO!!!!!!!

[stick]

I can just picture it: Background checks and waiting periods in the hardware aisle at Home Depot!

Well, the idiot lives in "Baaastin", anyway, so how smart can he possibly be?

Well, we were just waiting for this. Nobody surprised, right?

I love how everyone who's "progun" is some sort of fanatic to these people, even when it's our government officials! They'd probably shit their pants if they met some of the people around here... [;D]

[b]AMEN[/b] Brother! Bring 'em on! [devil]