Stylized duotone illustration of President Obama speaking at a podium flanked by the American flag and ceremonial eagle standards.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama laid out his response to the recent wave of mass shootings across the United States. His newest proposal: a law that would prevent anyone on the "No Fly List" from being able to buy a firearm.

To begin with, Congress should act to 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 semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security. — President Obama

Graphic reading '"No-Fly" List' over a silhouetted head, an airplane, and a Department of Homeland Security-style seal.

A bearded man in a beanie points a handgun at the camera, circled and crossed out with a red prohibition symbol — a stock image illustrating the 'terrorist suspect' stereotype the article critiques.

Seems Reasonable, Right?

Perhaps not. This list is part of Uncle Sam’s watchlisting system, created and maintained by the U.S. government’s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), of people suspected of being "terrorists" or otherwise deemed dangerous by the government. The watchlisting system operates under sketchy tactics that can get you labeled a terrorist (1) without your knowledge, and (2) without any evidence.

According to The Intercept:

The "March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance," a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no-fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and give a single White House official the unilateral authority to place entire "categories" of people the government is tracking onto the no-fly and selectee lists.

Without any real evidence that you're affiliated with a terrorist organization, you could be placed on this list — and, subsequently, banned by the government from owning a firearm.

And it doesn't end there.

You could be considered a terrorist for simply posting something the government doesn’t like on Facebook. The U.S. government uses a loose standard — "reasonable suspicion" — to determine who can be watchlisted. According to the released guidance, if anything you post on social media gives "reasonable suspicion" that you’re involved with or affiliated with "terrorism" in any way, you could end up on the list. You don’t even have to be the one posting it, either — if you’re unknowingly connected to someone already on the list, you could be watchlisted as well.

Instead of a watchlist limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future. On that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven’t carried out. — Hina Shamsi, ACLU National Security Project

President Obama’s recommendation is an extension of the coercion increasingly forced on the American people. The idea that mass shootings can be solved by enacting more laws is a logical fallacy — the "War on Drugs" is a prime example. Anyone who wants to harm another human being, or a group of people, will do so regardless of the law, just as anyone determined to use an illegal substance will find a way to do it. But how about we be honest that we’ve built a corrupt and illegitimate system that leaves people so disconnected from themselves and others that they become willing to kill multiple people? How about we look at the fact that almost all mass shooters in the United States were on dangerous pharmaceutical drugs?

How about we get honest about the manipulation, distraction, and division perpetuated by multi-billion-dollar companies — and their affiliations within the U.S. government — that give people in this country a false sense of satisfaction and fulfillment? It's about time we call this gun-violence charade what it truly is: a distraction. Until we're honest about that, and actually look at the reasons why these shootings keep happening, we will never address the root of the problem.