After being detained at airports because a name similar to his appeared on a government “no fly” list, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) now knows how it feels for gun owners who are wrongly identified during a NICS check, and have their firearms purchases delayed, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said today.
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“Ted Kennedy wonders how ‘average Americans’ who are getting caught up in homeland security checks can be treated fairly and not have their rights abused,” said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron. “He might well have wondered the same thing about the National Instant Check System before he helped push that legislation through Congress in 1993, but because background checks for gun buyers at the time didn’t infringe on his rights, he was only too happy to promote that anti-gun hysteria.
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“Now Kennedy has discovered how it feels to have some government agent detain him because his name is similar to some other name on a computer somewhere,” Waldron continued. “This is the kind of affront to which law-abiding citizens are subjected to every day simply because they want to exercise a constitutional right and purchase a firearm.
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“It is demeaning, demoralizing and downright wrong,” said Waldron, “to require any law-abiding citizen in this country to first obtain permission from the government before exercising his or her Second Amendment right. It is even more wrong than what Sen. Kennedy experienced because the last time I checked, there’s nothing in the Constitution that says Ted Kennedy has a right to get aboard any airplane going anywhere.
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“Homeland Security apologized to Kennedy for his problem at airports,” said Waldron. “When is Ted Kennedy going to apologize to law-abiding American gun owners for helping to ram through legislation eleven years ago that essentially treats every one of them like a criminal? History has demonstrated that the average American gun owner is far less dangerous with a firearm than Kennedy is behind the wheel of a car.”