I think the issue is that I'm not at all sure that an individual being on a watch list is something that is determined by any sort of judicial authority. The reasons may well be based on intelligence sources that the security services are, quite understandably, unwilling to reveal or discuss. You have to have a great deal of faith of you are prepared to accept that the answer to the question, " why is Mr X on a watchlist? " might be " because we say he should be, but we can't or won't tell you why". The scope for this to be abused, intentionally or otherwise is obvious. whilst it is just a watchlist, is a means for the security service to keep an eye on someone, that's fair enough. As soon as you move to a situation where you start to restrict someone's rights based purely on their being on that list that is an entirely different matter. You don't have to go too far back to see when membership of CND or the communist party, for example, would have seen your name on a watchlist. We know now that members of CND were placed under surveillance, had their phones tapped and so forth, because the authorities considered them to be subversive elements. So whilst I have every confidence that our security service are doing their best to manage this delicate juggling act, to suggest that it is incapable of being abused is a little naive. The truth is that we place considerable power in their hands, and have to trust them to use it wisely, likewise those who are responsible for overseeing what they are doing. Getting back to guns, I think the problem in America is that the second amendment seems to be regarded by many as being sacrosanct, and cannot be reviewed in light of the massive changes in society and weapons that have taken place since it was written. At that time the state of the art weapon was a muzzle loading musket. You would not get far trying to carry out a mass shooting with one of those, the reloading time alone would enable most of your potential victims to run out of range before you were ready to fire your second shot. A modern assault rifle is clearly a very different matter. So I think you need to ask those who own such weapons how their lives would be materially affected if they were no longer able to do so. I suspect the truthful answer would be not atall. Yes it would impinge on their right to bear arms, but if that were for the benefit of society in general then so be it. There are plenty of precedents, you cannot for example drive you car down the road at whatever speed it may be capable of, because as a society we believe your ability to do that should be controlled, so we have speed limits. Admittedly our right to drive a car is not enshrined in a constitution, but if it were I am sure no one would suggest that preventing you from driving your Ferrari past the local school at 150mph would be a catastrophic infringement of your constitutional rights. In short when the most advanced weapon you could own was a musket it was perfectly reasonable for the amendment to be taken at face value, and without any qualification. That is no longer the case and I would suggest that it does need qualifying and should no longer be taken to mean essentially anything you can get your hands on.
Interesting debate.
And a happy New Year to everyone.
