Gov. Cuomo joined Sen. Charles Schumer on Sunday to demand that the federal government close the “terror gap” by stopping suspected terrorists from being able to legally buy guns.
“It is sheer madness what we are doing now,” Cuomo said at a press conference with his fellow New York Democrat in Battery Park City. “You can be a suspected terrorist, and it is not illegal to possess a firearm or explosives.”
The duo is part of a growing national movement calling for the federal government to begin using its classified terror-watch and no-fly lists as criteria when conducting background checks on potential gun buyers — and refusing those who show up on either.
Cuomo said the feds need to give states access to the lists so they can cross-check them themselves if Washington can’t find common ground on a “common-sense provision” that would keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists.
“It is a basic breach of national security,” Cuomo said of the current system.
“The federal government should either figure out how to use that terrorist database as part of their background check . . . or establish a protocol that allows the states to do it, and New York State will.”
Schumer has been fighting in Congress to pass the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015, but the measure has been shot down twice in recent weeks.
“Too many senators were in the vice grip of the NRA,” Schumer said.
Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy last week proposed using an executive order to ban such gun sales in his state after the Dec. 2 San Bernardino, Calif., massacre in which 14 people were killed by a husband-wife terror duo. Neither armed-to-the-teeth killer was on such a list, but they might have been had US authorities been aware of their ties to radical groups.
Schumer and Cuomo also said the government needs to better track the social-media posts of those admitted on a visa to see if they are discussing things such as jihad, explosives or mass shootings.
Tashfeen Malik, the terrorist who staged the attack in San Bernardino with her husband, had written hate-filled Facebook comments well before the attack — but they went unnoticed by security officials.