This week the United States Senate failed to pass legislation that would prevent people on terrorist watch lists from buying guns. To repeat: the United States allows, and will continue to allow, people on actual FBI terrorist watch lists, such as the terrorist who murdered 49 people in a gay nightclub in Orlando, to purchase guns. It also will continue to allow private sellers to sell guns to people with mental illness, such as the murderer who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Donald Trump can’t make up his mind about guns (or most things). He told American ABC news: “We have to make sure that people that are terrorists or have even an inclination toward terrorism cannot buy weapons, guns.” But he says the National Rifle Association might be onto something when the lobby group says that being on a terrorist watch list or no-fly list should not preclude people from buying guns: “I understand exactly what they’re saying. You know, a lot of people are on the list that that really maybe shouldn’t be on the list and you know their rights are being taken away so I understand that.”

And he told an NRA gathering last month: “The Second Amendment is on the ballot in November. The only way to save our Second Amendment is to vote for a person that you all know named Donald Trump.”

Somehow it seems allowing known terrorists to buy semi-automatic weapons is not what America’s founding fathers had in mind.