Veterans’ Gun Rights Still Under Threat

As a veteran, I’m entitled to certain benefits. They were something that was promised to me when I enlisted, as they’ve been promised to those who came before me and those who came after.

Many of those in both camps deserve them far more than I. While I served during things like Somali and the US intervention in the Balkans, my happy butt was sitting stateside for all of that. I still remember being in Hospital Corps “A” School when the Battle of Mogadishu (Blackhawk Down) happened, and I can tell some stories of how our instructors used that as a lesson.

But I didn’t do much. Many of my brother and sister veterans did. They deserve the help, and the Veterans Affairs is supposed to provide it.

However, the VA has a history of taking the names of those who need help managing their benefits and submitting them to the NICS database as people who can’t own guns.

This is wrong because needing help with benefits isn’t the same as being adjudicated by a court as “mentally defective.”

And while there have been some legislative attempts at fixing this, they’re still ongoing. That needs to change.

Congressional Republicans want to end a policy they say makes thousands of veterans choose between financial help and their Second Amendment rights.

The Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act would block the Department of Veterans Affairs from sending any information about veterans seeking help with or managing their financial benefits to the Department of Justice to be added to databases used for criminal background checks.

Currently, the VA automatically sends a beneficiary’s name to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System whenever a fiduciary is appointed to help them manage their VA benefit payments because of a disability.

The Veterans Administration told a Congressional hearing last year that it is required to report veterans under the Brady Act when a veteran is determined to have a condition labelled “mentally defective”

Supporters of the bill to change the procedure say administrators at the VA decide on whether to appoint a fiduciary and 250,000 veterans have been stripped of their Second Amendment rights to legally purchase and own a firearm because of the rule.

“No veteran should have to choose between getting the help they need and preserving their constitutional rights,” Senator Paul said while signing on as a co-sponsor of the legislation on Monday. “The VA’s longstanding policy unfairly targets those who served our country, placing bureaucratic decisions above due process.”

The problem with the VA’s claim is that while they might be required to report those names, I fail to see how they’re authorized to make a determination that strips rights from veterans unilaterally. Because there’s no court, there’s no due process, hence the problem.

Look, I’m terrible with money. I’m just awful with it. This is an artifact of having ADHD, plus some other stuff, such as just never really getting a good financial education growing up.

Were I both single and living off of VA benefits, I might be tempted to ask for some help managing my financial affairs because of that.

But not if it meant losing my gun rights.

After all, I’m just crap with money. I’m not a danger to myself or others. I’ve never even threatened someone with a gun who wasn’t a clear threat to me. I’ve never hurt anyone who wasn’t trying to hurt me. I’ve never crossed that line from responsible gun ownership to irrational armed individual. Why should I have to worry about whether or not I would lose my gun rights at all?

Why should any veteran?

Y’all, many of the people in the VA system did a lot more than I. They fought for their country. They bled for their country. They watched their friends bleed out, powerless to change fate, and put themselves through horrors that most of us can’t comprehend in any way unless we’ve been there, all for their country.

They deserve better than to have the agency tasked with helping them to turn around and screw them over.