Stumped: DHS’ Jeh Johnson Can’t Name Gun Law that Could’ve Stopped Mateen
Mateen Wasn’t on No-Fly List and Had Passed Background Check, So What Else Would Have Stopped Him? Johnson Couldn’t Say
There was a stunning moment on today’s Morning Joe, when Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson was stumped when asked a simple question. With all the brouhaha over gun control in the wake of the Orlando massacre, what law could have stopped Omar Mateen?
It was, of all people, Sam Stein of the Huffington Post who asked the killer question. Stein pointed out that Mateen was not on the no-fly or terrorist watch list, and had passed a background check. “So what is the actual legislative response” that would have stopped the Orlando attack? Johnson resorted to claiming that Congress had “a lot of ideas,” but could not name one that would have made a difference. He also repeatedly recited the new mantra: gun control is a matter of homeland security. Bottom line: the Dem clamor for gun control is a political stunt. It’s about increasing vote totals, not public safety.
DHS’ Jeh Johnson Can’t Name a Gun Control Law That Would Have Stopped Mateen from Mark Finkelstein on Vimeo.
SAM STEIN: So one component of this is gun control, which is being debated right now on the Senate floor. Cynics look at the gun control debate and say, okay, you want to screen people who are on the no-fly list, the terrorist watch list, this guy wasn’t on the list. You want to do background checks, this guy passed a background check. So what is the actual legislative response that would have prevented the situation like we had in Orlando?
JEH JOHSON: There are a lot of ideas in Congress right now. I just think that when you look at Orlando, you look at San Bernardino, we have to face the fact that responsible, sensible gun control is now a matter of homeland security. It’s not just a matter of public safety. It’s a matter of homeland security that we address this on a national level. This is something we’ve got to face and we’ve got to do. To minimize the opportunities for a terrorist to get ahold of a gun one way or another. It’s a matter of homeland security that we take this on.
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“sensible gun control is now a matter of homeland security. It’s not just a matter of public safety. It’s a matter of homeland security that we address this on a national level.”
Get ready, this is the setup for another Executive Order/Rule!
The count down starts now; 6/16/16 8:03.
Not possible. Executive orders are just instructions from the president to his employees; nobody who doesn’t work for him has to obey them. So he can tell his employees not to deport people who’ve been given some bit of paper, but he can’t tell gun dealers whom not to sell to without a law to back him up.
You mean THIS TIME the producers didn’t have to edit the interview to make it look like the speaker didn’t have a clue of what he was talking about?
Great point! Are you listening, Katie Couric?
Can you say “Dumber than a post.”?
dumber than a ROCK , a post (tree) was once alive.
And very pretentious to boot.
Can you say quota appointee?
The DHS should not exist. I do not want a gov’t. agency determining if I am a security risk. You and I (a Christian) both know where the Left goes with that. And it gives the gov’t way too much power.
Yes, immigration is a problem right now but that would not have stopped Mateen and the others. And the internet is.
So, I will control my guns. That way, I stay safe.
Each person can be their own DHS and let our armed forces and intelligence agencies focus on the enemies without who want in.
Why waltz around it – the gun control the Left wants is to minimize if not eliminate a private citizen’s ability to purchase a gun without such a long in-depth review that most people would not persist.
Yes. Never let a crisis (or any other opportunity to advance a left-wing agenda) go to waste. To the left, that’s all this is: an opportunity to advance the agenda.
The initial response from the left was:
Ban AR-15’s!!!!
When it was pointed out that the shooter didn’t use an AR-15:
Ban all semiautomatics!!!!
When it comes to firearms, the left is stupid, and proud of it.
No, the Political Left is not stupid, but they certainly know their intended audience is.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/06/16/senate-democrats-filibuster-ends-with-an-agreement-on-gun-control-but-nobody-knows-what-that-is-yet-n2179194
In the past, I’ve been more sanguine about how such a vote or votes would be rejected. I’m less so today. It’s the T-rump factor.
https://ricochet.com/trump-backs-democrats-no-fly-list-gun-ban/
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns.
8:50 AM – 15 Jun 2016
12,848 12,848 Retweets
40,030
Funny how Trump thinks the NRA or the military will obey him no matter what, and yet he continues to slide in the polls – the American people are not obeying him.
Funny how you guys have Trump on the brain 24/7.
Do you sleep with the lights on and keep checking under your bed to make sure he isn’t waiting to suck your brains out while you sleep?
Oh wait…someone beat him to it.
“National Security”. He’s making the beginnings of the case of “Clear and Present Danger”, in order to allow executive action for immediate confiscation of guns. Using all the right words……
Wat are you talking about? There are no “right words”. There are no circumstances that would allow such an order, so he can’t possibly be setting it up.
If he wanted to issue an order with no legal authority he could just do it; he wouldn’t need to set anything up. But he knows nobody would obey it, so what would be the point?
The adults in congress (if there are any) need to slow this rush to a bad law down.
The dems have push so much bad information and have so confused people.
Nothing they can pass would have stopped a person willing to die in a brazen attack against defenseless people.
Government in a “free” society can not stop a madman from killing. It’s just impossible.
Jeh Johnson needs to be prosecuted for fraud when Trump takes over in January. This affirmative action appointee, only qualified because he was a “bundler” for Obama, has put America at grave risk through his utter incompetence and support of the President’s agenda.
Um, what are you talking about? What fraud do you allege him to have committed? Do you even have any idea what the word “fraud” means? Or do you imagine it’s just a meaningless insult you can fling at anyone you don’t like?
A successful law career is all the qualification he needed for his position, and “support of the President’s agenda” is his job. How can you imagine prosecuting him for it? He works for the president, and has to support his agenda or resign. If the agenda is wrong (and it is) that’s on the president, not on the secretary.
Have you now become the site monitor? Do you think everyone here wants your two cents on their OPINIONS? This isn’t a police report and all of us are entitled to our opinions without your oppressive nit picking on every thought.
When prompted, he was very clear: redirect the narrative away from radical islamic terror and refocus on a gun grab. Got to keep an eye on that Bundy bunch.
Of course no gun law could have stopped him.
A magic wand that made all guns everywhere in the world disappear wouldn’t even have inconvenienced him.
A quick trip to William Sonoma or Walmart for a pressure cooker and he’d have killed just as many people.
Quick — let’s ban pots and pans.
Whenever something like this happens, we see the usual suspects clamoring for mode firearms restrictions. It is simply a fact of life. One must never let a crisis go to waste. This time, it is going to be even worse, because an entirely new group of people are desperately attempting to divert attention from the fact that man who committed this atrocity self identified as a radical Muslim.
But, what these gun control people ignore, is the fact that gun control simply DOES NOT WORK. In Chicago in 2015, 2986 people were feloniously shot and, of those, 470 were killed. And this occurred in a city where it is impossible to carry a gnu, legally, and very difficult to even own one. Illinois, in general, and Chicago, in particular, are the poster children for restrictive gun control. In the case of the Sand Bernardino shooters, they did not even purchase the weapons, themselves. In the VT shooting, the shooter killed 32 people and wounded 17 more, with a pistol. And, Cho had been declared mentally ill and ordered to attend treatment sessions, by a special justice, but, because he had not been institutionalized, he passed the NICS background check.
No matter how hard the government tries to regulate the purchase, possession and carry of firearms, it just never seems to work.
“it is impossible to carry a gnu”
True: those wildebeests are very unwieldy 😉 But seriously, agree with your comment!
Thus the reason why gnu control doesn’t work [lol]. I got to juggling too many things in the midst of that post and didn’t proof read it.
And since you spelled it right, the spell checker let it pass.
That just gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling about “smart guns” and “self-driving cars”, doesn’t it?
There is a difference between mass murder (more than 4 deaths) and attempted mass murder (less than 4 deaths), and the difference is often the presence of someone on the scene with the means and ability to cut short the rampage.
We need to pay attention to the difference in outcome, for example between the mass murder in Orlando, Florida, and the attempted mass murder in Garland, Texas.
As has been pointed out:
Average number of casualties when a “mass shooting” is stopped by responding police: 14.
Average number of casualties when a “mass shooting” is stopped by armed citizens: 2.9.
But that goes against The Narrative[TM].
No, Mr. Johnson, the real “matter of homeland security” is not making guns harder to get, it’s ensuring that more potential victims can carry them for defense of themselves and others (and the “homeland”) so that the next time some maniac tries to massacre dozens of people, he gets put down fast.
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” [emphasis added]
So naturally, the appropriate thing to do is remove the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. For “security,” or something.
The entire Dept. of Homeland Security should be abolished and disbanded; the whole mess from the top down is an affront to Constitutional principles.
Those too stupid to understand the problem will never have a solution.
Oh, they’ll have plenty of “solutions”.
Every single one of them more ineffective, unworkable, unfeasible, over-burdening, or downright impossible than the last, and none of which address the real root cause of the problem.
DHS is just a different name for S S !
The head TSA guy?
He also repeatedly recited the new mantra: gun control is a matter of homeland security.
As I pointed out elsewhere, I’m guessing he forgot that this latest attack of “gun violence” was perpetrated by a licensed (i.e. background checked) security guard, who is employed by a Homeland Security contractor. Perhaps Jeh would like to claim some of the responsibility for this one, hmmm?
The new initiative failed before it was even enacted. His argument is invalid.
A friendly reminder that Donald Trump also wants to take away your 2A rights under the pretext of fighting terrorism:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/236336/
Good Grief.
Grow up.
Grow up and what, let go of my constitutional rights?
We see from Johnson’s statement that the Dems have no logical or factual argument to offer, instead substituting a repetitive drone that it’s logical, it’s sensible, it’s something we have to do, we have to do it at the national level, it’s about homeland security, repeat, repeat, repeat. There’s no logical argument on offer. Therefore no logical argument can refute it. So defense is impossible. The only alternative is attack. A great advantage of attack is that, unlike defense, it doesn’t have to be logical.
And, if we actually had two functioning political parties, the Dems would be under attack right now. Obama et al aren’t difficult targets. So, Mr. President, just where did all those guns you had illegally shipped to Mexico end up? That’s an obvious one, but it should happen automatically, every time Obama starts singing the praises of gun control. And it should just be the start of the counterattack.
But no, the R’s are determined to play their usual fumbling and inept defense. They won’t attack Obama; at best, they’ll launch another feeble attack against Trump, who is planning to talk with the NRA about … something or other, well, nobody knows what they’ll actually talk about, but, uhhh, well … let’s assume a nice straw man, and knock that down … And the end result will be the usual; Obama will have clear sailing yet again. The R’s will agree on a “compromise” in which the Dems lose nothing but win further restrictions on American civil liberties, and Islamic terrorism will be affected not at all. And that’s to the Dem’s advantage, too; the next time a Muslim kills a boatload of Americans, the Dems can prattle about the need for more gun control … again.
For the Democrats, terrorism is the gift that keeps on giving. They’ll do nothing to impede it.
What fantasy universe are you describing? In this universe the Republicans in Congress, yes, those “establishment” Republicans, have stood firm against all such proposals before, and are standing firm against it again. They have reintroduced the same counter-proposal they put forward last time, and are standing by it.
The R proposal is not a compromise, it’s a worthwhile measure on its own merits. If probable cause that a person is dangerous actually exists, and can be demonstrated before a neutral finder of fact, then they shouldn’t be allowed to buy weapons. That is due process, which is what we’re properly exercised about.
The Dems function on the concept of “greater good” to the collective. The loss of several hundred Mexican nationals Fast and Furious) and now Americans in San Bernardino and Orlando (Islam is a religion of peace) must be weighed against so many lives being saved in the future (gun control). An Islamist without a gun will be a model citizen… a waiting period prevents banks robberies (Sarah Brady)… gun control works (Chicago)…. the Left loves ideology but can’t grasp anything but theirs…. through their filters they are incapable of seeing reality.
These nitwits deserve only our contempt and mockery.
I have watched this imbecile since he was appointed by another imbecile and the outcome was so predictable for both. johnson appears most of the time with a slight smirk on his face as if he knows what is really happening but can’t say. If there is a dumber man/woman in the obama admin it might just be loretta lynch. They are both good examples that are the opposite of MLK’s statement that a person is judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character. Neither one has any character.
The suggestion that new gun control laws are needed is an admission that all previous gun control laws have failed to fulfill the promises made by their supporters, yet the supporters of such laws continue to insist that they can eradicate evil acts with just one more law. That they can get any traction for their proposals is indicative of the gullibility of the general public.