Grinch Democrats Won't Let This Santa Off The "No Fly" List

Anti-gun Democrats and the mainstream media are continuing their attempts to ban the sale of firearms to hundreds of thousands of American citizens placed on the “no fly” and terror watch lists for vague reasons or no reasons at all, including this gentle Tennessee veterinarian.

Advertisement

K0012265065--633761

Dr. Patrick Stephen Hackett is a veterinarian — not a terrorist.

Try explaining that in the airport security line.

Hackett, a lifelong resident of the Knoxville-Oak Ridge area, was named Outstanding Practitioner of the Year in 1992 by the Tennessee Veterinary Medical Association. He serves as president of the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley.

He’s on the no-fly list.

Hackett has never been arrested and never traveled to the Middle East or other centers of terrorist activity, but he found out more than a decade ago he’s on the federal watch list because he shares the same name as notorious Irish Republican Army terrorist Patrick Joseph Hackett, who was jailed in the 1970s for planting bombs in Britain.

The difference should be easy to spot. The terrorist is missing an arm and a leg — blown off when a bomb exploded prematurely — while the Knoxville veterinarian has all his limbs intact.

“I don’t know how I got on the list, and I don’t know how to get off the list,” Hackett said.

Since learning he was on the list, Hackett has been denied boarding on planes and even spent time in a foreign jail. He says that’s why he worries about the recent proposal by President Barack Obama to prevent those on the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list from purchasing guns.

Hackett worries he could be denied his constitutional right to buy a gun without due process.

When he heard about the president’s plan to prevent those on the no-fly list from buying guns, he sent an email to U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. asking for help.

A spokesman for Duncan’s office said he didn’t have any specific information on Hackett, but said when someone’s name matches a person on the no-fly list, Duncan’s office assists them in getting a redress number that allows travel.

“I would consider a gun ban for people on this list if I felt that it was limited to people who were truly terrorists,” Duncan said in a statement. “Unfortunately, as the New York Times reported, the no-fly list has ‘run amok’ and is ‘vastly overbroad.’ Even the late (U.S. Sen.) Ted Kennedy ended up on a watch list in 2004. This effort to turn the no-fly list into a no-gun list is just a political gimmick that is being used by the far left to try to impose gun control on law-abiding Americans following (the recent mass shooting in) San Bernardino, (Calif.).”

Advertisement

Let’s be very, very clear about what these Anti-gun Democrats really want.

They want the ability to add the names of citizens they don’t like to arbitrary lists in order to strip them of their constitutional rights without them being suspected of committing a crime. They want the ability to “Minority Report” American citizens based upon their beliefs, their ideas, and their affiliations with political parties or civil rights groups such as the NRA, whom they would love nothing more than to be able to designate as a “terrorist group” as the New York print media has called for openly.

These lists are no longer designed to stop terror attacks. They are being turned into “enemies lists” targeting the American people.

I sincerely, honestly feel for traditional Democrats, of whom there are far more than you know. They’ve held their noses and typically voted the party line, even as the national party has shift ever more leftward. It’s now getting to the point as we head into 2016 that they are representing only socialism (Obama/Clinton/O’Malley) and communism (Sanders). Theses traditional Democrats—John Kennedy/Jim Webb Democrats who are typically gun owners—are wonderful Americans facing a very tough choice between party loyalties and a greater allegiance to the Constitution next November, and I do not envy them.

Advertisement

Join the conversation as a VIP Member