Rand Paul says his gun proposal might prevent tragedies like Orlando

In the wake of the Orlando shooting, many have proposed restricting gun sales to those on terrorist watch lists, but there’s a problem.

Orlando killer Omar Mateen was not on a government terror watch list.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul would like to change that. He is urging the Senate to support a proposal to keep someone’s name on the terror watch list if they have been investigated by the FBI for five years.

From Roll Call:

Sen. Rand Paul thinks the current debate over blocking terror suspects from buying guns is missing the mark, since the man behind the mass shooting in Orlando wasn’t even on the federal watch list.

“I do think that there’s one answer here that if we put it up, everybody could vote for it. That’s the idea that if you have been investigated by the FBI, that your file remains open for five years,” the Kentucky Republican said in an interview. “And that you would remain on the terror watch list.”

“That’s the only thing that, of all of these proposals, that would actually have worked to have got the Orlando killer, because all of the stuff with the watch list doesn’t work if he’s not on the watch list,” Paul said.

Paul outlined his idea just ahead of Monday’s test votes on a series of four amendments related to background checks and restrictions on access to guns. All of the measures failed to achieve the 60 votes needed to advance across the Senate floor.

The Terrorist Screening Database is a list of names of people suspected of engaging in terrorist activities by the FBI. According to most recent reports, there are around 800,000 people on the list and only a few thousand are American citizens. Only American citizens and legal permanent residents are eligible to purchase firearms in the U.S.

There are mixed opinions about the list. Many believe it’s valuable despite well documented flaws, including listing children, dead people and innocent citizens who can’t remove their name. Others like the American Civil Liberties Union believe there isn’t strong enough criteria to determine who should and shouldn’t be on the list. The ACLU has also raised concerns about racial and religious profiling.

But Paul’s idea doesn’t deal with those questions, instead addressing what to do with suspects authorities have reason to believe have terrorist ties, yet still don’t have enough evidence to detain.

It’s appropriate to continue investigating them, Sen. Paul suggests, as police often do with crimes. Many police departments even have special “cold case units” that reopen dead cases to try and solve them.

Paul believes his bill is an example of striking the right balance between protecting liberty and enhancing security.

Another example of this is the only gun control bill that Paul supported yesterday, a vote criticized by some Second Amendment advocates.

Legislation sponsored by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), which is also backed by the NRA, would have allowed the Department of Justice to delay gun sales to anyone on the terror watch list for 72 hours. Current federal law already allows a 72 hour delay on gun sales to perform deeper background checks.

Cornyn’s bill sought to make the FBI to go before a federal judge if they wanted to deny gun sales based on the terror watch list for longer than 72 hours. It would’ve protected the due process of even those on government lists, but also kept guns out of the hands of potential terrorists.