Mitch Perry
South Florida U.S. Rep. and Democratic Senate hopeful Patrick Murphy announced Tuesday his support for legislation that would ban people put on the terrorist watch list from being able to buy firearms in the U.S.
That’s the same legislation that the GOP-led Congress rejected last week in both the House and the Senate, coming in the same week of the massacre in San Bernardino, California. Two Florida Republicans running for U.S. Senate, David Jolly and Ron DeSantis, voted against the bill in the House.
“This bill isn’t perfect and there’s going to be too many people on it,” Murphy said in a conference call, reciting the argument that most Republicans used last week to reject the legislation. “Let’s have a simple conversation about how you improve the legislation, get it up for a vote immediately, and show not just Americans but the world that we are going to act.”
The usually mild-mannered Democrat blasted Congress for refusing to act in the wake of another mass shooting, saying that there are too many politicians “willing to do nothing” and sit on the sidelines because of threats from the National Rifle Association.
“They are rejecting the most basic safety measures because they’re intimidated by the gun industry, so I think it’s an embarrassment to our country, and an embarrassment to those folks not willing to support this that they will cave to these special interest groups on something so common sense,” he said.
Murphy said the issue is one of common sense and shouldn’t be partisan. However, it has become partisan over the years. Recently Republicans have been mocking President Barack Obama, congressional Democrats, and news organizations such as The New York Times for talking about gun control when they say the U.S. is at war with radical Islamic terrorists.
As has been well documented there have been mistakes made by the Department of Homeland Security in compiling the terrorist watch list. Murphy said, though, that’s not a good enough reason to not act. “It’s not some arbitrary list,” he said. “This list is based on some serious evidence, serious investigation done not only by the FBI, CIA and many agencies and working with our allies around the world to develop a list of those we think suspected of nefarious activity. To me, it’s completely common sense that we keep people who are suspected terrorists from buying a gun.”
In supporting his opposition to the legislation last week, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said there are “700,000 Americans on some watch list,” but that number was wildly overstated, something that fact checking organizations called him out on. Murphy said the same thing on his conference call. “This proposal does not affect all of the estimated 700,000 to 800,000 people that are on that terrorist watch list. Because the legislative proposal doesn’t actually require the Attorney General to use the watch list, the no fly list, or any other list. He or she has flexibility.”
Overnight David Jolly, one of those Republicans running for the same Senate seat that Murphy hopes to capture next November, issued a statement blasting Donald Trump for his comments. Trump said the U.S. should ban all Muslims from entering the country until the nation’s leaders can “figure out what is going on” after the California attack.
Murphy said he stands with Jolly on that front: “We’ve been agreeing with what Jolly said and denouncing those comments. It’s nice to see bipartisan support for Donald Trump to get out of this race.”
Murphy says he wants Jolly, DeSantis and the two other GOP Senate candidates – Todd Wilcox and Carlos Lopez-Cantera – to support the proposal.
One comment
Gene Ralno
December 9, 2015 at 8:53 pm
Conservatives aren’t opposed to denying firearms to terrorists. They’re only opposed to denying those on the no-fly list. Many on the no-fly list aren’t terrorists, criminals, adults or even who it says they are. Most aren’t even in this country. The Congress refused to sign this grossly erroneous, un-Constitutional legislation because it’s a secret, big government list that names large numbers of peaceable, lawful congresspersons, government employees, infants and physically compromised elderly persons. Persons named aren’t told when their names are added. There’s no established due process for being named and none for having one’s name removed. It’s another step toward the subjugation desired by the current administration. It’s another flimflam and a misnomer. Most in Congress know it doesn’t harm leftists because leftists don’t own firearms. That fact alone defines this effort as just more oppression from leftist ideologues. Fortunately, most in Congress are better Americans than any in the administration.
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