It is well known that President Barack Obama has little chance of moving any part of his gun control agenda through Congress but that hasn’t stopped him from using his regulatory powers to expand the list of people prohibited from owning guns – even if that means going door to door to confiscate them.
That’s exactly what President Obama intends to do to Social Security recipients who own guns, and here’s how he’s going to do it.
If a Social Security recipient seeks help in running their health, financials or other personal affairs, the Obama administration wants to declare that recipient incompetent to own or use firearms for hunting, shooting or self-defense.
This is according to a report in Los Angeles Times and the Second Amendment Foundation that has jumped on this power grab with both hands.
According to the president’s plan, millions of Americans who receive monthly disability payments or Social Security benefits handled by others will be added to the list of “disqualified persons” in the U.S. Justice Department’s instant criminal background check system run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE)
The twisted administration’s reasoning is, if someone “can’t” handle their own affairs, how can we trust them with guns. The Obama Administration is relying on language in federal gun laws that say “restricted people” are those who are unable to manage their own affairs due to “marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease.”
And unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats get to decide. On their own authority, if the Social Security Administration is sending your benefit checks to a financial planner, an estate trustee or a law firm, you’re out – no guns for you.
Moreover, if records show that you already own a firearm after matching up Social Security records with background check and purchasing records, you face a knock on the door by a federal gun ban bureaucrat with a search and seizure warrant for your firearms.
Up until now, Social Security has never taken part in the background check system. The same is true for the Department of Veterans Affairs system, which “floated the idea”. If regulations with the force of law are approved, then millions of beneficiaries could be affected.
The administration’s plan is to depict people who have help managing their affairs even for reasons of ease and choice, will be depicted as tottering old fools struggling with Alzheimer’s who can’t find their way home.
That’s the administration’s argument!
The administration would deny the most vulnerable people in the country – the old and infirm – from having the ability to defend themselves against criminal attack and critics like the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) are having none of it.
In a press statement released by SAF, the organizations said:
“The Second Amendment Foundation today responded to published reports that the Obama administration is pushing to prevent citizens collecting Social Security benefits from owning guns if they have problems managing their own affairs as proof the president wants to strip as many people as possible of their Second Amendment rights while he remains in office.”
“This could possibly disqualify millions of people from owning firearms and might prevent many others from seeking help,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, himself a U.S. Army veteran.
“It’s unconscionable that someone who might have problems balancing a checkbook or managing their finances would suddenly find himself or herself stripped of their right to keep and bear arms.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, the plan “could potentially affect millions whose monthly disability payments are handled by others.”
Even more outrageous is the reports assertion that senior who receive benefits from the Social Security Administration will be grouped in with felons, drug addicts, immigrants in the United States illegally, and others. Gottlieb said:
“The Obama administration wants to equate some Social Security recipients who own guns with felons, drug addicts and illegal immigrants. That’s not simply insulting, it’s insidious, because who knows where this could lead?”
“What’s next?” “Will they take away someone’s right to vote, claiming they’re not competent?”
Published research estimates about 4.2 million adults are now receiving monthly Social Security benefits that are managed by someone else, designated as “representative payees.”
“What may seem reasonable to people who reflexively support any and all gun control is really just one more effort by the Obama White House to erode Second Amendment rights any way they can,” Gottlieb stated.
“Taking away someone’s Second Amendment rights because they can’t manage their finances is wrongheaded and repugnant.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms.
