Earlier this year, we had one of our largest victories. We teamed up with patriots like you and pressured Congress to remove an obscure Obama-era Social Security regulation that would have disarmed hundreds of thousands of disabled and elderly Americans if implemented.
Thanks to your activism, an obscure regulation was brought to the forefront and Congress took action.
Now, it is time to do the same thing for our Veterans!
When Obama decided to rewrite the rules to disarm Social Security Beneficiaries, he was following a blueprint. For years, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has implemented a similar regulation.
When our brave men and women in uniform return home from overseas, VA doctors, psychiatrists, and bureaucrats use technicalities to eliminate their Second Amendment rights.
One estimate puts the figure at over 800,000. That is the number of veterans who have been stripped of their Second Amendment rights without a hearing or due process.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives officially passed H1181, the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act. We have been pushing for this bill for months.
Now that the finish line is in sight, anti-gun groups are coming out of the woodwork to block the bill in the Senate. They cannot be allowed to derail our effort!
When Congress repealed the Social Security gun ban, they used a mechanism called the Congressional Review Act (CRA). This allows Congress to repeal a regulation within 60 in-session days of its implementation.
Because Obama finalized the Social Security gun grab in his final days in office, Congress was able to use this mechanism to repeal it. More importantly, CRA bills cannot be filibustered. They need just 51 votes in the Senate to pass.
Unfrtunately, Congress can’t do this for our Veterans. The practice at the VA of disarming veterans and stripping them of their constitutional rights has been going on for years. It goes all the way back to the George W. Bush Presidency.
Here’s how the anti-gun program works. Doctors convince veterans to let a family member or friend help manage their finances. The veteran then checks a box formally requesting a “representative payee” so that a loved one can deposit their benefits checks or pay bills on their behalf to make life a little easier.
The VA argues that any vet who cannot manage his or her own affairs is “mentally defective” and unfit to own a firearm. This paperwork is then sent directly to the FBI and the veteran is added to the NICS background check system as a prohibited person. They are turned away from gun shops if they try to purchase a gun and if they happen to have a concealed carry permit or hunting license, law enforcement comes to their home and seizes their firearms.
There is no due process. There is no hearing. Veterans can’t even fight this. The VA assumes the power of a judge and declares individuals mentally defective with “sub-human intelligence” to justify disarmament. The fact of the matter is that for many, they just need a little help making sure bills get paid on-time. Even worse, perhaps, is the fact that many Veterans are living their lives in pain because they would rather keep their constitutional rights than get treated at the VA.
Over the past decade, this has happened to more than 800,000 Veterans.
When I first came onboard here at Conservative Daily, this was one of the first issues I pushed to the forefront. We have been demanding that Congress pass this repeal legislation since John Boehner was swinging the gavel.
And now we are this close to winning…
The anti-gun lobby is pushing hard to kill this bill and the media is running false headlines to rile up liberals.
NPR, using your tax dollars, ran a headline that said, “House OKs Bill Making It Tougher To Keep ‘Mentally Incompetent’ Vets From Buying Guns.” You can see why Pres. Trump’s budget slashes NPR’s funding…
The media is full of scaremongering stories like these.
The issue isn’t about making it easier for anyone to buy a gun. It is about making it harder for the Government to take away someone’s constitutional rights. At the VA, there is no hearing, there is no trial, and there is no adjudication before a judge. The Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act changes that.
If the VA believes that a Veteran is a danger to himself or others, they have to go through the courts, just like every other government agency. No more adding 800,000+ names to the prohibited person list without due process.
We need 8 Democrats in the Senate for this bill to pass. That is assuming that anti-gun Republicans like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) don’t flip and vote with the Demorats. Otherwise, Congress will need to attach the bill as an amendment to a must-pass spending bill.
We need to make sure that this bill isn’t just Congress checking something off on its to-do list. Far too often, bills pass the House and then get forgotten. Members of Congress get to say they did something without actually doing something.
Not this time.
These brave men and women in uniform answered the call to defend us. They took up arms to protect our way of life. When they got home, the government took away their arms.
Please, stand up and fight for them!
To victory,
Max McGuire
Advocacy Director
Conservative Daily
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