During consideration of the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill (H.R. 2578), Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) offered an amendment that would authorize the attorney general to deny the transfer of a firearm to an individual who appears on the “no fly list” or the “selectee list” and would require notification to law-enforcement officials if an individual who has appeared on the Terrorist Screening Database within the last five years has requested a firearm transfer.
The Senate did not vote directly on Collins’ amendment but on a motion to table (kill) another motion to send H.R. 2578 back to committee with instructions to add Collins’ amendment to the bill. The motion to table was rejected on June 23, 2016 by a vote of 46 to 52 (Roll Call 109). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because restricting non-criminals from flying is a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of “due process of law,” and linking firearm ownership to a federal no-fly list is a violation of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The federal no-fly list includes many people with no criminal record, and some people with identical or similar names to convicted criminals are erroneously placed on the list.
