Bill to Protect Veterans Gun Rights Advances in House

People who serve their nation, particularly in combat, never leave the military the same as when they went in. We’re all different to some degree or another. Some of those differences are positive, such as new degrees of maturity and self-discipline, but sometimes, they’re not.

Putting yourself in harm’s way can make civilian life kind of hard to deal with, and not everyone reacts to trauma the same way.

Which is something the Department of Veterans Affairs is supposed to help with. This is a federal department meant to help veterans as they need it.

Unfortunately, some veterans need more help than others. Some even need help handling their finances, which the VA does.

The problem is that when someone couldn’t manage their money, the VA put their name into the NICS database as a prohibited person. This is a major problem because the VA isn’t a court of law. They don’t have the authority to determine if someone is unable to act responsibly with a firearm, but they were doing it anyway.

While the practice has supposedly been halted now, there’s nothing to stop them from firing it back up again down the road, which means Congress needs to act.

And act they did.

On Tuesday, May 6, 2025, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, led by Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL-12), held a markup for several bills. Among these bills being considered was H.R. 1041, the Veterans 2^nd Amendment Protection Act, sponsored by Chairman Bost himself. The Committee voted to favorably report this legislation by a vote of 13-11. With this important step of the legislative process complete, the bill can now be considered by the full U.S. House of Representatives.

This bill would reverse a decades-long practice that has been used by the Department of Veterans Affairs to strip hundreds of thousands of veterans of their constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights without the same level of due process afforded to all other law-abiding Americans.

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This legislation would essentially restore the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands of veterans who have wrongfully been denied their right to keep and bear arms, and protect countless veterans in the future from suffering that same fate.

This is undoubtedly a good thing.

Yes, some people who need a fiduciary for help with their VA benefits are also people who are incompetent in general. Those people should be referred to the courts, which are the proper parties to determine if they’re what the law terms as “mentally defective.” That’s not for the VA to decide.

As it stands, many people who might need help are reticent about getting that help out of fear that the VA will strip them of their gun rights.

These are men and women who were required to go everywhere armed in combat zones, who were trusted with things like explosives and full-automatic weapons, but are now concerned their handguns will be taken from them because they suck with money.

That’s not something anyone should have to deal with.

I’m glad to see my brother and sister veterans one step closer to justice. Let’s just hope this gets all the way through the process, as it should.