EXCLUSIVE —
Watchdog
groups are raising concerns over the
FBI
coordinating secretly with hospitals and medical centers to strip citizens of their rights to own, buy, or even use firearms.
On Tuesday,
the
Washington Examiner
revealed
that the FBI worked hand-in-hand with medical facilities in New Hampshire, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma to
waive
gun rights with internal forms from at least five people. Now, watchdogs are calling for accountability and putting the federal government on blast for its actions in connection to the forms, which were not authorized through Congress.
“Instead of operating within the constraints of the law and the Constitution that are in place to protect the rights of American citizens, it seems too many within government spend their time looking for ways around those constraints,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Washington Examiner. “Apparently, it is too much to ask that the agencies charged with enforcing the law also obey it where it applies to them. Doing so would go a long way toward restoring the public’s faith in its government.”
FBI WORKED SECRETLY WITH HOSPITALS TO STRIP US CITIZENS’ GUN RIGHTS, DOCUMENTS SHOW
Between 2011 and 2019,
the FBI presented forms to U.S. citizens
at their homes and in other locations that registered them with the bureau’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Republican
members of
Congress
and First Amendment lawyers have alleged that the FBI appears to have violated people’s Second Amendment rights through the usage of the form — which asks signatories to identify voluntarily as a “danger” to themselves or others, or also lacking the “mental capacity adequately to contract” their lives.
It’s unclear when exactly medical facilities received the forms, which were later sent to the FBI with patient signatures.
The facilities included
New Hampshire Hospital, a state-funded entity, two private Massachusetts groups called Holy Family Hospital and Stoneham Medical Group, as well as the Delaware-based Rockford Center and Oklahoma’s Northwest Center for Behavioral Health, a mental health clinic.
There is no indication that patients were ruled mentally “defective,” raising questions as to how the FBI’s actions bode with the Gun Control Act of 1968, which
holds
that a person could be prohibited if they are “adjudicated a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution.” However, the act does not say someone can declare themselves unfit to own firearms.
“We already know that the FBI worked with Big Tech to take away First Amendment rights, and it looks like they may have colluded to take away Second Amendment rights, too,” Pete McGinnis, a spokesman for the Functional Government Initiative, told the Washington Examiner. “Which constitutional right will be their next target? If due process was ignored as seems apparent, this is another example of abuse of government.”
In addition to the forms, the Washington Examiner obtained emails between FBI employees discussing the internal gun forms.
“Attached is the Petition I submitted to the hospital to have [redacted] committed for Mental Treatment along with the supporting Social Media Posts expressing a desire to obtain a firearm,” an FBI employee emailed a colleague in September 2019 in response to them being asked to send an updated form version with a correct date of birth for the signatory.
Watchdogs said that an investigation into the gun forms would fit into the agenda of the GOP-led Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is looking into government actions in the private sector. The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH),
who has vowed to investigate the FBI
in connection to the forms.
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“Frustratingly, every day, there seems to be a new revelation of the FBI working to violate the rights of American citizens,” Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog, told the Washington Examiner.
“The work of the weaponization subcommittee in Jim Jordan’s Judiciary Committee has an ever-growing list of scandals to investigate at the FBI,” Jones said. “This latest revelation needs to be at the top of that list.”
