House Republicans are preparing to further roll back the number of people automatically denied gun permits because they’ve been deemed mentally incompetent by the federal government.
The House is poised to pass a bill on Thursday that would allow ex-service members declared “mentally defective” by the Veterans Affairs Department to still legally buy guns.
“The freedoms granted by the Constitution should apply to all Americans—especially the men and women who have been willing to risk their lives to protect those freedoms,” stated the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn. “This common-sense bill would ensure no veteran or beneficiary is declared ‘mentally defective’ simply because they utilize a fiduciary.”
Currently, veterans who need help managing their finances are labeled mentally incompetent, triggering a requirement that the department send their names to the FBI for inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, thereby preventing them from purchasing firearms.
Those veterans can appeal to the VA for an exemption from the gun prohibition “but that leaves a VA bureaucrat—not a magistrate or other judicial authority—with the power to determine whether or not relief is warranted,” Roe stated.
Roe’s bill would require a judicial or court ruling on the veteran’s mental capacity before forwarding his or her name to the FBI.
“With gun homicides and suicides on the rise, this will be the third time in as many weeks Trump’s administration and the new Congress have taken action to allow people to buy guns who have long been prohibited because they pose a heightened risk to themselves or others,” the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence stated on Wednesday.
Congress already passed, and President Trump signed into law, a measure reversing an Obama Administration rule that blocked mentally disabled Socially Security recipients who cannot administer their own finances from legally buying guns.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who co-sponsored the bill, said it’s a matter of allowing veterans to access the rights for which they fought.
“For the men and women who have worn the uniform of this country to be denied the very constitutional freedoms that they fought for is unconscionable,” Wenstrup stated when the bill was introduced last month.
“Veterans shouldn’t be forced to choose between utilizing the resources they’ve earned at the VA and exercising their Second Amendment rights. As a veteran myself, I am honored … to ensure no veteran is denied their constitutional rights due to bureaucratic overreach,” Wenstrup stated.
Brady Campaign President Dan Gross disputes that characterization.
“This is not, and never will be, what it means to ‘take care of our veterans,'” Gross stated.
“This month, the real March Madness is [giving] people access to guns who may be a danger to themselves or others,” Gross said. “This piecemeal dismantling of the Brady Law may be good for the gun lobby, but it’s flat-out deadly for the rest of us.”
Automatic background checks for gun purchases and waiting periods became mandatory under 1993’s Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
On Thursday two House Democrats and a combat veteran are holding a news conference to denounce Roe’s “Veterans 2nd Amendment Rights Protection Act.”
