I suppose it’s a lot easier coming after senior citizens than hardcore gangbangers, illegal aliens, and other criminals who illegally have and use firearms
(LA Times) Seeking tighter controls over firearm purchases, the Obama administration is pushing to ban Social Security beneficiaries from owning guns if they lack the mental capacity to manage their own affairs, a move that could affect millions whose monthly disability payments are handled by others.
The push is intended to bring the Social Security Administration in line with laws regulating who gets reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, which is used to prevent gun sales to felons, drug addicts, immigrants in the country illegally and others.
A potentially large group within Social Security are people who, in the language of federal gun laws, are unable to manage their own affairs due to “marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease.”
There is no simple way to identify that group, but a strategy used by the Department of Veterans Affairs since the creation of the background check system is reporting anyone who has been declared incompetent to manage pension or disability payments and assigned a fiduciary.
If Social Security, which has never participated in the background check system, uses the same standard as the VA, millions of its beneficiaries would be affected. About 4.2 million adults receive monthly benefits that are managed by “representative payees.”
It sure sounds like this will violate privacy and health records, eh?
But critics — including gun rights activists, mental health experts and advocates for the disabled — say that expanding the list of prohibited gun owners based on financial competence is wrongheaded.
Though such a ban would keep at least some people who pose a danger to themselves or others from owning guns, the strategy undoubtedly would also include numerous people who may just have a bad memory or difficulty balancing a checkbook, the critics argue.
“Someone can be incapable of managing their funds but not be dangerous, violent or unsafe,” said Dr. Marc Rosen, a Yale psychiatrist who has studied how veterans with mental health problems manage their money. “They are very different determinations.”
Well, hey now, Grandpa might want you off his lawn! This is the problem with the “gun control” debate from Leftists: they want to come after law abiding citizens, yet seem entirely afraid to go after those who are the actual problem. Which is no wonder, since so many of them reside in Liberal cities, and, really, are enabled by Democratic Party policies, which are soft on crime, soft on illegal aliens, and, let’s face it, enable Blacks, who are the major recipients of gun crimes, both those who shoot and those who are shot, in those liberal cities. People on Social Security are easy targets for the gun control.
Its actually frightening how the sheeple want their only protections taken away from them. As in gun ownership.
Look at the poor cops shot in the terrorist attack in France….they didnt even carry guns.
Yet one has to argue how violent France would be if they allowed gun ownership as in the USA.
While I don’t see a problem with what he is trying to do….in that these people are usually suffering from DIMENSIA or some form of Alzheimers IF they are on social security…….
Restricting these people from gun ownership is actually a prudent thing to do……..
however…….
Most gun owners and/or libertarians fear is that they wont stop until every group is no longer allowed to own a gun.
If you stop fighting one fight then you have to fall back to the next line and make a decision if you want to fight that fight.
Its why the right has never relented on Guns, Abortion, Religion and Immigration….
When is enough….enough….when is one concession not ever followed up by the demands for more concessions.
When will the left concede that ACA is a disaster except for the very poor who get free insurance…..the rest of us….me included watched our really good insurance reduced to JUNK…..while our premiums escalated.
My wife for example went from 80 percent coverage down to 50 percent and the School district saw their premiums RISE by over 1500.oo per person per year in what they had to cover.
Where do you draw the line….when do you draw the line……how many concessions do you make?
If you give up one thing…..a day later they have moved on to demanding you give up the next thing……..
Its why Gun ownership in any fashion will be fought tooth and nail and nothing will ever be conceded…..
Because this ONE thing is never enough…..its only the first line drawn in the sand………everyone on both sides understands that.
The Fourteenth Amendment holds that a person’s civil rights cannot be restricted except following due process of law. How, exactly, is taking away someone’s Second Amendment rights by administrative action due process of law?
Where are the statistics that show SSI recipients are convicted killers or arrested on gun possession charges? How many have been investigated for terrorist activities?
This has exactly ZERO to do with public safety and threats. It is simply a gun grab.
Agreed with all commenters.
“This has exactly ZERO to do with public safety and threats. It is simply a gun grab.” And I will add they want to take them from some of the most vulnerable among us, the elderly!
of course everyone in a nursing home should be armed at all times, that is I believe one of the NRAs non negotiable talking points
of course everyone in a nursing home should be armed at all times, that is I believe one of the NRAs non negotiable talking points
Trish when are YOU going to begin handing out some guns to the poors in nursing homes. Surely they are very vulnerable and need more guns !!
The poors in nursing homes? Wow, you sure do take everything to a level of idiocy. I hope that nursing homes have staff who are armed. In coming years, it seems like every facility will be needing armed guards. Meanwhile, it is not my duty nor my right to hand out guns to the poors in nursing homes. It is though my right to arm myself and as I get older, protect myself in my own home. It is not my problem nor anyone’s to make sure poors are equally armed. That is a warped socialist notion at best.
