Yesterday while browsing Crooks and Liars I read about a recent Al Qaeda video encouraging their followers to go down to the nearest gun show and buy an assault rifle since you’ll be confronted most likely “without a background check and most likely without having to show an identification card.” Since we’ve had several lively gun discussions here in the past I figured this would be a good opportunity to resume the conversation.

This video will likely bee seen as rather inflammatory as some, but it does pose an interesting question. Why, when the patriot act was designed, was access restrictions or waiting periods for assault weapons left out? I’m guessing the answer to that would be the NRA lobby (if only the ACLU had so strong a lobby…) but it does seem like a gaping hole. Is it more important for the government to know who just bought a large amount of ammo and assault weapons or to know who took out the communist manifesto at the local library?