The no-fly list is a terrible tool for gun control, in part because it is a terrible tool

I made a joke on Twitter on Sunday night, which, as is the case with all Twitter jokes, was a mistake.

It came after President Obama's Oval Office address, during which he advocated for excluding people on the government's no-fly list from buying weapons. The joke was this:

HOW TO BAN GUNS Step 1: People on no-fly list can’t buy guns. Step 2: Everyone goes on no-fly list.

— Philip Bump (@pbump) December 7, 2015

The point of the joke -- which I very quickly realized was lost on some, making it a bad joke -- was that the no-fly list is a secret list that uses secret criteria to determine who finds a home on it.

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