Some of you may have already learned of the LA Times story that tells of the Obama Administration’s plans to take away guns from senior citizens in its supposed efforts to curb gun violence.
For those who haven’t heard of this or haven’t read much of what it’s about, here are some of the details from the article:
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…
As alluded in the opening sentence, this isn’t about curbing violence. This is about control. Gun. Control. Even progressives can’t come up with a gentler way to put it.
The Administration uses a broad criteria to define this gun ownership requirement for seniors, which has already been implemented in the case of veterans.
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.” …
One baseline for other agencies is the VA, which has been entering names into the system since the beginning. About 177,000 veterans and survivors of veterans are in the system, according to VA figures.
The VA reports names under a category in gun control regulations known as “adjudicated as a mental defective,” terminology that derives from decades-old laws. Its only criterion is whether somebody has been appointed a fiduciary.
Instead of starting on a micro-level with the proposal, focusing only on seniors who are unquestionably unfit to own a gun such as those with dementia or have a history of psychological problems, refining and adding to the regulations as other complications may arise, the gun-controllers go for the whole enchilada of taking away the guns from anyone who needs representatives to take care of their finances.
Gun rights advocates are unlikely to be the only opponents.
Ari Ne’eman, a member of the National Council on Disability, said the independent federal agency would oppose any policy that used assignment of a representative payee as a basis to take any fundamental right from people with disabilities.
“The rep payee is an extraordinarily broad brush,” he said.
Since 2008, VA beneficiaries have been able to get off the list by filing an appeal and demonstrating that they pose no danger to themselves or others.
But as of April, just nine of 298 appeals have been granted, according to data provided by the VA. Thirteen others were pending, and 44 were withdrawn after the VA overturned its determination of financial incompetence.
So will any progressives stand up for the rights of the disabled minority? Or do they believe that control overrides the ability to protect oneself?
Many senior citizens live alone and have no one to protect them if they’re faced with an intruder inside their homes. Like with those younger than them, there are multiple instances of elderly citizens using guns to protect their life and property. Should home invaders be allowed to do as they please to those who are physically weaker than them merely because our elders may need someone else to handle their checkbook?
If implemented, this policy will leave more of our citizens vulnerable to personal threats to their safety. Americans young and old who are fit to own a gun should be able to keep it. Because if it saves just…one…life…
