Nov. 20--Impressive, in a way, wasn't it?
Not even a full six days after the horrors of the Islamic State terrorist attacks in Paris, and the U.S. House of Representatives acted to combat the threat on our shores. By a vote of 289-137 the lawmakers passed the American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act, a measure calling for enhanced scrutiny of refugees from Iraq and Syria.
In a statement, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, explained that "the bill requires the nation's top security officials -- the secretary of homeland security, the director of the FBI and the director of national intelligence -- to certify before admitting any Syrian or Iraqi refugee into the United States that the individual does not represent a security threat."
He added that creating such a high bar for entry is necessary "in order to keep terrorists from infiltrating America disguised as refugees. We cannot afford to play Russian roulette with our national security."
President Barack Obama is expected to veto the measure if it passes through the Senate, but not before its supporters wring from it as much political advantage as possible.
Along those same lines, earlier in the week nearly three dozen governors, most of them Republicans, announced their legally dubious intentions to ban the settlement of Syrian refugees within their borders. Many said they were acting "in an abundance of caution," given reports that one of the attackers in Paris had posed as a refugee and results of a survey that showed about 1 in 10 Syrians in Europe sympathize with the goals of Islamic State.
"Caution" is certainly a nice word for it.
How many refugees from Syria, Iraq or anywhere, for that matter, have committed acts of terrorism in the United States? Well, zero seems to be the answer.
But there's always a first time, and innocent people -- hapless, blameless bystanders -- will be killed, cut down, like most of the victims in Paris, in the prime of their lives. And if there's anything we can do to forestall such an event, no matter how transgressive of our values, how conjectural the threat or how much the "caution" looks like rank hysteria, well ....
Funny thing, though. When it comes to an actual threat -- the near certainty that thousands of Americans will be slaughtered next year and every year going forward by guns in the wrong hands and by guns designed for the efficient killing of human beings -- our lawmakers and state chief executives are inert.
After the December 2012 massacre of 20 schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the public clamored for a crackdown on guns -- among them bans on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines, background checks for nearly all sales and increased penalties for straw purchases.
