Check Out the Crazy Reason the VA Is Stopping Some Veterans from Owning Guns

Independent Journal Review

In 2015, The Hill reported on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sending a letter to then-Department of Justice Secretary Eric Holder. In it, he demanded answers on what he saw as wrongheaded Veterans Administration (VA) regulations barring some veterans from owning guns.  

Townhall shared excerpts from Grassley’s letter:

According to Grassley’s office, the VA “reports individuals to the gun ban list if an individual merely needs financial assistance managing VA benefits,” keeping them from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

The VA is placing veterans on the gun ban list without proper legal backing and is certainly engaged in over reach through this practice.

On top of serious concerns about the infringement of Second Amendment rights, Grassley is raising questions about the lack of due process for veterans classified as “mentally defective,” and therefore unfit to purchase a firearm, who simply need help managing VA benefits.

Fast-forward to March 2016. Townhall’s Katie Pavlich is reporting that Sen. Grassley is now seeking to cut off funding for the Veterans Administration in the 2017 budget in areas which could be used to withhold veterans’ Second Amendment rights.

https://twitter.com/hrkbenowen/status/713163870366380033

He wrote to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, in part [emphasis ours]:

Federal law requires that before a person is reported to the NICS, they be determined a “mental defective.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) promulgated a regulation to interpret what “mental defective” means within 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).

The ATF defined that term as a person with marked subnormal intelligence or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease who is a danger to themselves or others, or lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs.[4] The purpose of this regulation is to preclude such persons from possessing or owning firearms…

The VA regulations do not follow ATF’s severe and substantial mental state standard. For example, the VA does not determine if a veteran is a danger to self or others. Rather, the VA analyzes a person for mental defect under an inappropriate standard designed for a different purpose: to appoint a fiduciary, not to regulate firearms. Unlike the ATF standard, the VA’s sole purpose is to analyze a veteran to determine if he or she can or cannot manage their finances, and, if not, appoint them a fiduciary…

Accordingly, in light of the fact that the Second Amendment is a fundamental right, the VA ought to be prevented from reporting veterans to the NICS unless and until the VA first determines they are a threat to themselves or to the public.

So far, there’s been no response from either the Subcommittee or the VA about the senator’s latest move.

Independent Journal Review

One thought on “Check Out the Crazy Reason the VA Is Stopping Some Veterans from Owning Guns

  1. “… a person with marked subnormal intelligence or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease who is a danger to themselves or others,…”

    That pretty much describes the Z/T jews and every politician in this country, doesn’t it?

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