http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/04/nyc-mayor-bloomberg-outra_n_563337.html
With his city still on edge over this weekend's attempted truck-bombing in Times Square, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg heads to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to give Congress a piece of his mind on a closely related issue.
Bloomberg is upset about a federal loophole that, amazingly enough, allows people on the FBI's Terrorist Watchlist to legally buy guns and explosives.
Current federal law specifies only a limited number of reasons the government can cite to block the purchase of guns or explosives -- and being in the FBI's database of those "known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity" isn't one of them.
Despite what would appear to be an easy vote, members of Congress, at least in part due to fear of the gun lobby, have consistently bucked requests from both the Bush and Obama administrations to close what Bloomberg calls the "terror gap."
"We need Congress to have our back on this issue, it's upsetting that, so far, they haven't," Bloomberg told the Huffington Post on Tuesday, through a spokesman.
"There is no silver bullet, but we have to give law enforcement every tool we can. New York City remains at the top of the terrorist target list, something we were reminded of this weekend."
Weapons sales to suspected terrorists are not hypothetical, either. According to new statistics compiled by the Government Accountability Office and exclusively obtained by the Huffington Post, individuals on the terrorist watchlist were involved in firearm or explosives background checks 1,228 times in the past six years -- and 1,119 of those transactions were allowed to proceed.
With his city still on edge over this weekend's attempted truck-bombing in Times Square, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg heads to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to give Congress a piece of his mind on a closely related issue.
Bloomberg is upset about a federal loophole that, amazingly enough, allows people on the FBI's Terrorist Watchlist to legally buy guns and explosives.
Current federal law specifies only a limited number of reasons the government can cite to block the purchase of guns or explosives -- and being in the FBI's database of those "known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity" isn't one of them.
Despite what would appear to be an easy vote, members of Congress, at least in part due to fear of the gun lobby, have consistently bucked requests from both the Bush and Obama administrations to close what Bloomberg calls the "terror gap."
"We need Congress to have our back on this issue, it's upsetting that, so far, they haven't," Bloomberg told the Huffington Post on Tuesday, through a spokesman.
"There is no silver bullet, but we have to give law enforcement every tool we can. New York City remains at the top of the terrorist target list, something we were reminded of this weekend."
Weapons sales to suspected terrorists are not hypothetical, either. According to new statistics compiled by the Government Accountability Office and exclusively obtained by the Huffington Post, individuals on the terrorist watchlist were involved in firearm or explosives background checks 1,228 times in the past six years -- and 1,119 of those transactions were allowed to proceed.