One Bill of Rights, Hold the Second

Yesterday's New York Times editorial on terrorist suspects' access to guns is pretty dramatically inconsistent. (I've seen someone else make a similar point regarding a previous op-ed on this topic, but I'm afraid I can't recall who to credit for it.) The editors are appalled that people on government terrorist watchlists aren't prevented from buying firearms.

That's rather obviously in tension with the general editorial position that people who're merely "suspected" of doing something wrong shouldn't have their rights abrogated. The Times hasr rightly denoucned the practice of locking people up on the basis of an executive designation, but gun rights, apparently, don't merit equally vigorous protection. Recall, incidentally, that analogous no-fly-lists have also kept dangerous characters (with common names) like Ozzie and Harriet actor David Nelson grounded.

Addendum: A commenter suggests it was Matt Yglesias at TAPped who I was thinking of above, which sounds plausible, though I thought it was an older post…