Republican presidential candidates disagreed Sunday over whether people on the no-fly list should be allowed to buy guns.
Democrats attempted to add an amendment to last week's bill to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood that would have prevented anyone on the no-fly list from buying a gun. Republicans voted it down, saying that there is no due process for putting people on the terror watch list, and innocent people have shown up on it.
"The majority of the people on the no-fly list are oftentimes people that just basically have the same name as somebody else who doesn't belong on the no-fly list," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN's
"State of the Union" on Sunday. "Former Sen. Ted Kennedy once said he was on a no-fly list. There are journalists on the no-fly list. There are others involved in the no-fly list that wind up there."
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told ABC's
"This Week" that not only was Kennedy on the list, but so are conservative writer Stephen Hayes and singer Cat Stephens, also known as Yusuf Islam.
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"Sometimes you're only on that list because the FBI wants to talk to you about someone you know, not because you’re a suspect," Rubio said. "And, again, now your Second Amendment right is being impeded with."
"If the FBI knows that someone's in our country and they're tracking them, they shouldn't be able to get guns for sure," Bush said. "But the no-fly list is a much broader list. It's not an accurate list to be able to use for restricting gun rights for law-abiding citizens."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, appearing on "State of the Union," said it is a good idea to keep people on the no-fly list from buying guns, but added that doing so could tip them off that they are under watch and could hurt ongoing investigations.
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"We want to make sure that we can exploit all the information that we possibly can get," Kasich said.
Front-runner Donald Trump took the position most aligned with Democrats, saying on
"Face the Nation" "I'd certainly take a look at" restricting gun purchases by people on the list.
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"I'm very strong into the whole thing with Second Amendment," he said, "but if you can't fly, and if you've got some really bad – I would certainly look at that very hard."
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