Last month, the House of Representatives fulfilled a campaign promise and passed legislation to get the Department of Veterans Affairs out the disarmament business.
For more than a decade, the VA has implemented a program to actively disarm American military veterans. These men and women were trusted to take up arms to defend the United States but the minute they got home, their right to defend themselves entered the anti-gunners’ crosshairs.
The Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act would put an end to this disarmament scheme. It passed the House of Representatives with a bi-partisan majority of 240 votes. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) – the former Vice-Chair of the Democratic Party – even voted to dismantle the anti-gun/anti-veteran program.
Now, we are hearing that the bill is dead on arrival in the US Senate because liberal Republicans don’t want to appear ‘soft on guns…’
Here is how the VA’s disarmament scheme goes down. Whether a veteran was returning home from Iraq or Afghanistan or just coming into the VA for a check-up, a government employee would strongly recommend that they assign what is known as a “representative payee.” This is a family member or friend who is authorized to make financial decisions on behalf of the veteran. If you think about a vet’s VA benefits as a bank account, assigning a representative payee is the same as adding a second name to a bank account.
While stationed overseas, many soldiers do this anyway. For example, they might give their parents the power to make rent or mortgage payments. That is a lot easier than trying to negotiate wire transfers from the mountains of Afghanistan. Assigning a representative payee is completely harmless in itself.
Here’s the problem: there is a provision within the law that allows for Americans to have their 2nd Amendment rights revoked if they are “unable to manage their affairs.”
When this law was written decades ago, it was meant to deal with people who are committed to mental institutions or so mentally disabled that they literally can't live alone or take care of themselves. In recent years, the VA has taken this and begun applying it to veterans.
So, if a veteran assigns a representative payee to their benefits account and then years down the road, they get diagnosed with mild anxiety, the VA would put those two things together to justify disarmament. Government lawyers were instructed to argue that these veterans were “unable to manage their own affairs” because they are “mentally defective” and possess “sub-human intelligence.”
Those are actual quotes from the law…
John Arnold, a Vietnam veteran living in Idaho, got a letter in the mail from the VA notifying him of an imminent confiscation order on his firearm collection. You see, Mr. Arnold had a stroke. While recovering, he assigned a representative payee to help make sure that all his bills got paid in time. Even though he had recovered from the stroke, the VA argued that Mr. Arnold was mentally defective and unable to manage his affairs.
When the agent arrived at the Arnold home, he found the local sheriff and 1,700 neighbors standing between him and the gun collection. So, the VA employee backed down.
When this story first broke, we bombarded Congress with just under half a million FaxBlasts. These were letters delivered right to the Congressional offices that staffers couldn’t ignore or delete.
With your help, we pushed this issue to the forefront of Congress. Because of your persistence, the House voted a month and a half ago to eliminate this heinous VA disarmament program. Instead of letting VA bureaucrats unilaterally decide whether veterans should be allowed to own a gun, they will now be forced to obey the Constitution.
But the bill still hasn’t been heard in Senate. We are getting word that there are just too many anti-gun Republican Senators standing in the way. Maine Senator Susan Collins – who routinely works with Democrats on gun control issues – is reportedly one of the opponents.
This is unacceptable.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of veterans have already had their 2nd Amendment rights revoked because of this unconstitutional policy. These men and women answered the call and took up arms to protect you and this nation. Now, their right to defend themselves is under attack.
Now it is your turn. Please, answer the call right now and rise up to protect them!
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