Disarming suspects: second amendment.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Citings - Power of US attorney generals - Brief article

LATE LAST year, congressional Democrats responded to mass shootings in the U.S. and abroad by trying to give the attorney general unilateral power to deny the right to purchase a gun to anyone she suspected "to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing material support thereof." The only condition was that she have an undefined "reasonable belief" that that suspected person "may use a firearm in connection with terrorism."

Despite the words "reasonable belief," many Republicans didn't want to give the A.G. arbitrary power to declare anyone ineligible for a core constitutional right (the Second Amendment) connected to a core human right (self-defense). In the past, the notion of "material support" for terrorism has been stretched...