U.S. needs to connect the dots on its terror attacks

If the week that followed the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history has revealed anything everyone can agree on, it’s this: We don’t do a good enough job connecting the dots.

Because how does a guy described by his ex-wife as bipolar, a guy the FBI felt suspicious enough about to investigate for 10 months on two different occasions, end up legally purchasing an assault rifle?

How does a guy who bragged to co-workers he had family members in al-Qaida, who so disturbed his co-workers with racial, religious and homosexual slurs and threats of killing people that they went to authorities, keep his security-guard job and all the trust and access it engenders? And how does he fall off the FBI’s terror watch list?

As politicians and parties once again pull out their threadbare scripts of talking points, from closing borders to Muslims to banning the sale of certain firearms, it is important to note that Omar Mateen was born in New York and terror doesn’t always come from the barrel of a gun.

Timothy McVeigh used a rental truck full of fertilizer to kill 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Eric Rudolph used bombs to kill two and injure 150 at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta as well as abortion clinics and a gay bar. Theodore Kaczynski, aka the “Unabomber,” mailed bombs throughout the United States over 17 years, killing three and injuring 23. The list goes on; the 9/11 terrorists used planes, the Boston Marathon bombers used pressure cookers.

The sheer variety of terror sources our nation has faced shows there is no easy way to prevent the next attack. Unfortunately, too many of our politicians like easy, as well as familiar and politically correct.

And so some call for closing our borders and having those in the Muslim community dime out fellow members who criticize the American government. (FYI, Friday was the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty arriving here, and the House Un-American Activities Committee was abolished in 1975.)

And some call for banning assault rifles. Not only does a Washington Post study show the nation’s 10-year ban (1995-2004) had little effect on gun violence, but just how would the nation address the guns already out there? Besides, these so-called “assault” rifles are not fully automatic, the demonized AR-15 is a favorite of target shooters, and the tough gun laws of France did nothing to stop the massacres at a Paris nightclub, the offices of Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish deli that combined claimed 104 lives.

To date the most promising suggestions for reducing the domestic terror threat are comprehensive background checks to purchase firearms and not allowing sales of firearms or explosives to individuals on the FBI’s terror radar. Both help connect the dots and have the backing of New Mexico’s senators.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., is co-sponsor of the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act. It would prevent suspected terrorists —presumably like Mateen — from buying guns and explosives. And in 2013 Heinrich voted to expand background checks to all commercial firearms sales and crack down on illegal gun transactions by explicitly making straw purchasing and gun trafficking federal crimes. Senior Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., supports both amendments to the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill. Both are scheduled to come up Monday. Both have failed in the past.

Heinrich says it “is not about creating a burden for law-abiding gun owners. It’s not about a threat to the Second Amendment. What has become clear is that there are simply critical junctures where we have to be able to identify those who would do us harm.”

And that brings us to political correctness and a nation that refuses to officially target radical Islam just 15 years after 9/11 took more than 3,000 American lives. Just last week, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey said the Islamic State is committed to inspiring terror by so-called lone wolves, “attacks by sympathizers who have no direct links to the group.” They say ISIS will in fact seek to infiltrate fighters into the refugee stream, so we do need better vetting.

Yet President Obama and presumptive presidential nominees are locked in a pitched battle over labels. Those matter, as the investigation into Mateen shows his mental outlook and religious fervor motivated a carefully planned attack in which he also took care of his financial affairs in advance

One week after Orlando claimed 49 lives and shattered countless others, here is what also matters: there is in fact a warped, religion-based belief system that hates everything America stands for. But Americans are fully capable of differentiating between radical Islam and those who embrace the religion as one of peace. There is a bureaucratic system that allows believers such as Mateen to legally purchase firearms and explosives. And there does not appear to be the political will to pass Democrats’ universal background checks, which would require a few hours or days of inconvenience for gun buyers, or a version of “no-fly, no-buy” preventing people on terrorist watch lists from buying a gun.

Congress and the Obama administration need to finish out this term by connecting these three dots.

Because to date the only ones that have been connected in our nation’s terror attacks are the blood spatters from victims.