TGIF, Y'all

Well, I'm sitting here in my pajamas, so I don't know whether to start blogging or go testify in the Michael Jackson trial. Speaking of which, there are some things sufficently weird as to be beyond satire. What can you say? The trial venue should have been changed to Mars.

More importantly, the new New York Times-driven antigun initiative regarding "terror suspects" and their ability to obtain firearms. here's the story earlier this week that triggered the whole thing:

Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a Congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.

People suspected of being members of a terrorist group are not automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials and gun control groups have voiced increasing concern about the prospect of a terrorist walking into a gun shop, legally buying an assault rifle or other type of weapon and using it in an attack.

Let me say just one word here...suspect! Say it again and again...suspect, suspect, suspect, suspect. A suspect is, "Someone who is thought to be guilty," to crib the words from legal-explanations.com. Maybe I'm dense — no comments from chorus! — but I take that to mean a suspect HAS NOT been convicted of a crime; rather, someone...a cop, a district attorney, some guy in the basement of a federal office building in Washington D.C...that the suspect is guilty of something.

Just because your name is on some government list is no reason to deprive you of your rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Imagine the NYT's outcry if the G had announced that anyone on the various and sundry terrorists' watch list woiuld henceforth be denied his or her right against unreasonable search and seizure?

Make no mistake about it...this is just another antigun initiative.

And make no mistake about this, either...we are all on some government list...