Congressman pushes gun control for Americans on ‘terror watchlist’ that he personally turned up on

DC NEWSBy Blake Neff, DCNF

Democratic Rep. John Lewis was erroneously put on the no-fly list he now wants to use to restrict gun ownership for U.S. citizens.

Lewis staged a “sit-in” at the House of Representatives Wednesday to call for a law barring people on the federal no-fly list from purchasing guns. But Lewis himself was erroneously put on the list at one point for an entire year, meaning he would have been unable to buy a gun had his new proposal been law.

Several different gun control measures have been circulating in Congress in the wake of Omar Mateen’s June 12 shooting spree at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. One of the proposals would ban anybody on the federal government’s no-fly list from purchasing a gun. In the House, Lewis has become a champion of such a rule, leading an occupation of the House floor to demand a vote on the measure.

Lewis may view the no-fly list as a good vehicle for stopping terrorists from getting weapons. But terrorists wouldn’t be the only people hindered by Collins’ proposal. In fact, if such a law had existed a decade ago, Lewis himself would have been victimized by it.

Press accounts from 2004 to 2008 reveal that Lewis’ name somehow ended up on the federal no-fly list, and remained there for years despite his best efforts to get it off. In 2004, he claimed he was stopped 35 to 40 times in a single year by airport personnel who tried to keep him from flying. Presumably, if the “no fly, no gun” law had been in place then, Lewis would have had even more trouble buying a gun than he had getting on a plane.

Lewis isn’t the only prominent person to have trouble with the no-fly list, as Sen. Ted Kennedy and singer Cat Stevens also claimed they were mistakenly placed on it. Their experiences illustrate one of the chief criticisms of the no-fly list: That it can limit individual rights while giving individuals very limited power to fight back.

According to the FBI, the current no-fly list has about 81,000 names, although only a few hundred of them are Americans.

Follow Blake on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

BPR INSIDER COMMENTS

Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!

Latest Articles