Bill to repeal Veterans Disarmament Act needs co-sponsors

By John Velleco, Director of Federal Affairs, Gun Owners of America

The involvement of Gun Owners of America in the year-long battle over nationalized health care raised more than a few eyebrows in the media, the halls of Congress, and even the White House.  Many have asked why is GOA, Washington’s only no-compromise gun lobby, participating in the Obamacare debate at all?

“There is no mention [of] ‘gun-related health data’ or anything like it anywhere in either the Senate or the House [health care] bill,” complained one Obama administration official in reaction to GOA’s opposition to the Obamacare legislation.

The reason is simple.  GOA has seen firsthand how a centralized health care system can be used to disarm thousands of gun owners.

The federal Department of Veterans Affairs oversees the health care needs of many of the nation’s military veterans.  With more than 150 medical centers, hundreds of outpatient clinics and nearly 300,000 employees, the VA runs its very own version of a national health care system.  Bureaucrats in Washington, therefore, are in control of many health care decisions.

In 1999, under the direction of the Clinton administration, the VA was obliged to share certain mental health records with the FBI for the purpose of adding names to the national instant check system. People whose names are added to NICS, of course, are not allowed to purchase or possess firearms.

The health records in question had to do with persons the VA had deemed “mental defectives.”  Since 1968, persons so adjudicated have been prohibited from possessing firearms.  For decades, the common understating of “metal defective” applied to people found not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity.  In 1999, however, the Clinton Justice Department unilaterally decided to greatly expand the definition to include the VA’s very broad use of the term.

Without notifying the people affected by the decision, the VA turned over the names of 90,000 veterans who ”because of injury or disease lack the mental capacity to contract or manage their own affairs.”  Under the guise of “mental defectiveness,” therefore, many veterans who served their country honorably have lost their Second Amendment rights for life because a doctor or a bureaucrat in the VA appointed someone to look over their finances.

Thanks to routine data dumps, the number of veterans who have lost their gun rights due to common maladies like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has increased to an estimated 150,000.  PTSD, incidentally, affects as many as one third of all combat troops.

These veterans were not convicted of a crime, were not found to be a danger to anyone, and they were not afforded any meaningful due process of law.  They were added to NICS simply on the basis of the opinion of a government psychiatrist.

To make matters worse, what began under the Clinton administration as a blatant illegitimate abuse of power was codified by a law, the so-called Veterans Disarmament Act of 2008, signed by President George W. Bush.

If such a travesty of justice was made possible through the VA’s national health care system, there is every reason to believe that it will also occur under Obama’s proposed health care legislation.

That is why GOA has been fighting Obamacare, and that is also why GOA is pushing a bill right now to protect the Second Amendment rights of veterans.

Pro-gun Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) authored a bill, S. 669 that will safeguard for veterans two of the most fundamental Constitutional rights enjoyed by Americans: due process of law and the right to keep and bear arms.

“Taking away a Constitutional right is a serious action and veterans should be afforded due process under the law,” Sen. Burr said.  “Our veterans took an oath to uphold the Constitution and they deserve to enjoy the rights they fought so hard to protect.”

Sen. Burr’s bill, the “Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act,” simply stipulates that a veteran cannot lose his or her gun rights “without the order or finding of a judge, magistrate, or other judicial authority of competent jurisdiction that such person is a danger to himself or herself or others.”

In short, S. 669 will put an end to the practice of psychiatrists subjecting veterans to a lifetime gun ban.

The bill passed out of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee last June, but anti-gun Majority Leader Harry Reid will not let it see the light of day.  Sen. Burr is currently seeking opportunities to attach the bill as an amendment to another piece of legislation.

GOA is also continuing to push for more co-sponsors to S. 669.  There are currently only 18 Senate co-sponsors.  [See if your Senator is listed in the box.]  Given how many Senators claim to be pro-gun, that number should be much higher.

There could be a strategic reason why many Senators have not signed on to the bill.  They know that once a bill garners around 50 co-sponsors, it becomes very difficult for the leadership to ignore the legislation.  Seeing that only one Democrat, Virginia’s Jim Webb, has co-sponsored the bill, it could be that many moderate Democrats are staying off the bill to protect their party leader, Harry Reid.

Similarly, many Republicans might be staying off the bill to protect their own anti-gun Party members.

These Senators should be reminded, therefore, that it was the voters in their states, not their party caucuses, who elected them to office.  GOA urges its members to contact their Senators and insist they co-sponsor S. 669.

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Has your Senator co-sponsored the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act?

Brownback, Sam [R-KS]

Coburn, Tom [R-OK]

Cochran, Thad [R-MS]

Crapo, Mike [R-ID]

DeMint, Jim [R-SC]

Ensign, John [R-NV]

Enzi, Michael [R-WY]

Graham, Lindsey [R-SC]

Grassley, Chuck [R-IA]

Inhofe, James M. [R-OK]

Murkowski, Lisa [R-AK]

Risch, James E. [R-ID]

Roberts, Pat [R-KS]

Sessions, Jeff (R-AL)

Thune, John [R-SD]

Vitter, David [R-LA]

Webb, Jim [D-VA]

Wicker, Roger F. [R-MS]

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Gun Owners of America can be contacted via Phone: 703-321-8585 or Fax: 703-321-8408, or at www.gunowners.org.

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