Because it's not just firearms you can't purchase simply based on having a common name
A guy of middle-eastern decent (born in Afghanistan) wants to buy a car. We agree on the price, he fills out a credit-ap and we run it. Rock Star, as we say in the biz, 815 FICO score with 92% of his current credit available. Well employed at a famous medical school. Should be “No Problem” getting him financed, right? Wrong. His name brings up a flag on AMPAC, the American Patriot Act terrorist watch list. Well, his name is similar to other names on the list, so, banks are not allowed to loan money to him. It means he can’t get the car and I can’t get the sale.
A guy of middle-eastern decent (born in Afghanistan) wants to buy a car. We agree on the price, he fills out a credit-ap and we run it. Rock Star, as we say in the biz, 815 FICO score with 92% of his current credit available. Well employed at a famous medical school. Should be “No Problem” getting him financed, right?
Wrong. His name brings up a flag on AMPAC, the American Patriot Act terrorist watch list. Well, his name is similar to other names on the list, so, banks are not allowed to loan money to him. It means he can’t get the car and I can’t get the sale.
The watch list is useless at best. If you have enough information to put someone's name on the list, then you should be actively investigating them. Being named Mohammed Bin Laden, while ripe for late night TV show jokes, doesn't actually mean jack shit. Names are not unique identifiers and any list that runs solely off a name isn't worth the paper it's printed on or the bits it's stored in.
Do I want to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists? You betcha. But I want to do it by keeping the terrorist incarcerated / pushing up daisies which has the added effect of not only not allowing them to handle weaponry, but to not be able to threaten the populace.