How often do the ACLU and USA Today agree with the NRA when it comes to guns?

Not often.

When it comes to various proposals to ban gun sales for law-abiding folks who share a name that appears on the “NO FLY” list, the USA Today and the ACLU are on the same page as the NRA.

The ACLU opposes using “NO FLY” list names to prohibit gun purchases.

Until the No Fly List Is Fixed, It Shouldn’t Be Used to Restrict People’s Freedoms

(ACLU) – The No Fly List is in the news this week, just in time for the ACLU’s argument in federal court on Wednesday in its five-year-long challenge to the list’s redress process.

Last night, in response to last week’s tragic attack in San Bernardino, California, President Obama urged Congress to ensure that people on the No Fly List be prohibited from purchasing guns. Last week, Republicans in Congress defeated a proposal that would have done just that. “I think it’s very important to remember people have due process rights in this country, and we can’t have some government official just arbitrarily put them on a list,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said.

There is no constitutional bar to reasonable regulation of guns, and the No Fly List could serve as one tool for it, but only with major reform. As we will argue to a federal district court in Oregon this Wednesday, the standards for inclusion on the No Fly List are unconstitutionally vague, and innocent people are blacklisted without a fair process to correct government error. Our lawsuit seeks a meaningful opportunity for our clients to challenge their placement on the No Fly List because it is so error-prone and the consequences for their lives have been devastating. 

And the USA Today:

Should no-fly mean no buy?: Our view

Using a secret and sloppy list to take away a constitutional right is a bad idea.

In his speech Sunday after last week’s gun massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., President Obama demanded that Congress “make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon?”

On the surface, the issue does seem like a no-brainer. Delve deeper than the sound bites, however, and it’s a lot more complicated.

…Last year, a federal judge found government management of the list unconstitutional, ruling that the way people get put on the list with no notice, and no meaningful way to get off if they’re on by mistake, violated the Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process. That forced the administration to begin changing things.

…Like it or not, the Supreme Court has ruled that Americans have a Second Amendment right to buy and own guns, subject to reasonable regulation. Such regulation should include universal background checks and bans on sales of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But denying a constitutional right for certain citizens, based on  a secret government list, just doesn’t meet the test of American values.