We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again — Chris Christie is no friend to gun owners. Or civil liberties in general, apparently. New Jersey’s XL executive (who’s also a former federal prosecutor) sat down with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board to make the case that he’s commander in chief material. Case in point: his signature on a bill banning Garden Staters who find themselves on the federal terrorist watch list from exercising their Second Amendment rights. He acknowledges being challenged by someone who’d been erroneously included on the list and offered that the way to remedy the civil rights violation of RKBA suspension is to “get off the terrorist watch list.” . . .
What didn’t we think of that?
Only one problem. In almost the next breath acknowledges the Kafkaesque difficulty in accomplishing that.
From what I understand from talking to people who have been on (the watch list) it is a very, very difficult thing to work your way off it. I think there should be a much easier way for you to challenge if your turn out to be on the terrorist watch list and you can demonstrably prove you’re not a terrorist.
Yes, there should. But right now, good luck with that.
To distill Christie’s position, he’s OK with abrogating an enumerated constitutional right even though he’s well aware that, in the case of the watch list, a conspicuous lack of due process prevents those unlucky enough to be mistakenly ensnared from doing anything about it. He acknowledges the problem, but doesn’t really give a damn about the “rare exceptions.” Hail to the chief!
[h/t DrVino]