Today’s gun laws restrict those who cannot manage their own affairs from owning firearms. So the Obama administration is planning to use Social Security to restrict gun ownership. Individuals receiving Social Security benefits that are paid to care-givers will join felons and the mentally-ill on those who will fail background checks for gun purchasers.
From Karen Graham, Op-Ed: Obama will ban gun ownership to some Social Security recipients:
Wanting tighter control of gun owners in the country, the Obama administration has taken steps to tie gun ownership with Social Security benefits, expanding background checks for firearms owners.
President Obama was unable to push tighter gun control legislation through Congress in 2013, but through executive action, something the president loves to use, the Social Security Administration could cut off benefits, resulting in the addition of millions of people to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the Los Angeles Times reported.
The move would affect millions of recipients of Social Security benefits whose monthly disability payments are handled by others. The administration is saying this would bring the Social Security Administration in line with the laws “that prevent gun sales to felons, drug addicts, and immigrants in the United States illegally.” Oh, and this would include “others.”
It all has to do with the language of our federal gun laws, and that is where “others” comes into play. The gun laws are supposed to restrict gun ownership to “people who are unable to manage their own affairs due to marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease,” according to Fox News.
It comes as no surprise, but the Department of Veterans Affairs has been using the background check strategy since it was created in 1993, reporting anyone on their roles who has been declared incompetent and unable to manage their own affairs, and been assigned a fiduciary, or designated payee.
If Social Security opts to use the same system used by the VA, then as many as 4.2 million Social Security recipients, considered unable to handle their own affairs, and paid monthly benefits through a designated payee, would be affected.
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