Congress voted just moments ago to scrap former president Barack Obama’s “Social Security gun ban.” The ban, which targeted the elderly and disabled (two populations which might have a stronger case for the need for a firearm for self defense than any other) added individuals who had their finances managed by someone else to the list of prohibited persons in the National Instant Check System used to process background checks for firearm sales. Barack Obama implemented the ban via executive order, circumventing Congress.

Obama had previously stated that his inability to pass gun control legislation was one of the biggest disappointments of his career and that he would side-step Congress if it was a means to an end to enact his policies. He had added the new rule under the auspices of keeping guns out of the hands of the “mentally ill,” a narrative that the mainstream media is continuing in their reaction. From the Washington Post:

Under the rule, the Social Security Administration would provide information to the gun-buying background check system on recipients with a mental disorder so severe they cannot work and need someone to handle their benefits. The rule, finalized in December, affects an estimated 75,000 beneficiaries.

The rule, House Joint Resolution 40, passed the House of Representatives mostly along party lines. The resolution now moves to the Senate, where the Republicans hold a tenuous majority. If it passes the Senate then the resolution would go to the President for final approval before coming into effect.

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45 COMMENTS

  3. There are lots of reasons other than debilitating mental or physical disabilities for retirees to appoint someone, usually a family member, to manage their finances.

    But BHO didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to grab their guns.

  4. Not sure this will get past Schumer and the dem traitors, and I include McCain and Grahamnesty. Interestingly enough I had a physical this last Monday. Paid for by Medicare and Tricare for Life. The Doc asked me if I was having any trouble caring for myself, taking my meds and did I need ANY HELP managing my money. I answered no to all but after I was done I realized what he had asked and why.

  5. Frankly, it’s nobody’s damn business who manages someone else’s finances. Unless a person is adjudicated as mentally incompetent AND a significant risk to their own self or to others, AND only after being diagnosed as such by a COMPETENT mental health professional who perforce should have no knowledge of whether or not the patient owns firearms (to prevent their personal biases against gun ownership from becoming a factor), and with the additional opinions of other mental health professionals chosen by the person being treated/diagnosed, no law-abiding citizen should have their right to own firearms removed.

    • Even if all those conditions are met, “taking away their guns” isn’t the right answer. If someone is such a danger that they can’t be allowed near a gun, then they’re too dangerous to be allowed to circulate freely among the population. The idea that someone is such a threat they can’t be trusted to exercise their civil rights, but is not enough of a threat to lock them up, is utterly ridiculous.

      • What about the person suffering from dementia, so that their mind and sense of responsibility and inhibitions are rather more like those of a child than an adult. Not “dangerous” in the sense of a psychopath who wants to shoot up a movie theater or school full of defenseless victims, but more in the order of giving a 2-year-old a loaded pistol to play with. You don’t “lock up” someone like that. You don’t even necessarily force them into an institution, especially if family members care for that individual at home.

        • If he is “committed” at home by his own family, they should take away his guns the same way they wouldn’t let him run with scissors. It’s their business and their responsibility.

          If he’s committed by a doctor or legal authority after due process, there are already laws to take away his firearms and appoint a conservator. The EO by BHO was sheer BS trying to turn firearms ownership into a medical issue they can control.

          • Absolutely no arguments about the BS nature of OBozo’s executive order. What I was trying to say was that it is sheer BS to say that just because someone’s finances are being managed by someone else they must be incompetent to own a firearm and could have them confiscated without due process of law. I think people who answered my post negatively misunderstood my meaning. It’s just as BS and “gun grabby” as a doctor asking ANYONE if they have firearms in the house, as if gun ownership is somehow a disease or a health problem. THERE MUST BE DUE PROCESS OF LAW, AND TRUE JUST CAUSE (not just liberal gun-owner hating whim) before someone’s right to keep and bear arms is removed, whether lawmakers agree or not. .

      • People with those levels of disability are typically not circulating around because they are too enfeebled, and even if they were out and about, you really can’t lock up a bunch of old people in a (nonexistent) mental health care facility because they have Alzheimer’s, dumping their care onto the taxpayers when care by family members are adequate to the situation. But you can and should take away their guns.

    • Couldn’t have said it better myself. Taking away someone’s right to defend themselves should be based on more than who controls their finances. It should absolutely be done by a competent and unbiased professional, of which Obama is definitely not.

  8. My thoughts:

    Obama, like most Democrats, certainly did want to ban guns. There actually is a difference between Republicans and Democrats. Based upon his actions so far, Trump seems to me more like and Independent than a Republican.

    Open disclosure: I’m an Independent who strongly supported Trump, and an originalist.

  9. So awesome, we need more mentally ill people with guns.
    “House Republicans have voted 235-180 to overturn an Obama administration that blocked Social Security disability recipients with mental disorders from buying guns. Less than two weeks into Trump’s presidency and Republicans have given the mentally ill easier access to guns.”

    • Every liberal who owns a gun is a “mentally ill person in possession of a firearm”, since liberalism is a mental illness in and of itself…

        • That’s the beautiful thing about rights. I don’t have to convince you of jack shit. If you try to take my rights, I blow your fucking head off.

    • First, you are conflating mental illness with any and all reasons for simply having someone else handle your finances. Show me the connection. Hint: there isn’t one.

      Second, and more significantly, you are assuming that someone diagnosed with mental illness and has not been committed is more violence prone than someone who has not. Show me a properly designed study that shows that to be true. Hint: there isn’t one.

    • They voted to rescind an illegal EO that circumvented due process. Your guilty first, prove yourself innocent afterwards.

    • Except that the original order had nothing to do with people being adjudicated as mentally ill through due process. It simply assumed that anyone who had designated someone else to manage their finances must be mentally incompetent, and ordered them classified as “prohibited persons”. That’s an incredibly loose definition of “mentally ill”.

  11. Well thank God congress saw fit to restore gun rights to people who aren’t competent to manage their own finances. I always say, arm the mentally handicapped first.

    • Exactly. People who can’t manage a checkbook or exhibit diminished capacity in any measurable sense should fall into the category of “Lebensunwertes Leben”.
      Survival of the fittest should be the guiding principle. Take their guns ….take every thing. It’s their fault for growing old.

    • You are assuming that anyone who has someone else handle his finances has that setup because he is incompetent. Are you so lacking in imagination that you cannot think of any other reasons?

    • Ron, judging from your statement I’d say that if you do own some guns, you’d probably better turn them in…. There’s a huge difference between someone who might be a bit overwhelmed by the intricacies of dealing with government agencies and banks, and someone who is incapable of remembering and following three or four simple safety rules.

    • Okay, smartass, what if someone simply doesn’t WANT to manage their own finances – they could do so, but decide to allocate that task to someone else. Yet, if they answer the question honestly – yes, someone else manages their finances – the libturds think that it is okay to confiscate their guns. It’s just an excuse to infringe on peoples’ rights without due process of law.

    • You’re just throwing a dart at the wall, then drawing the Bull’s Eye around it. Someone who has a designated payee can fall into innumerable categories. It could be someone on a fixed income, with minimal assets, and bedridden. That could be thousands of social security recipients right there. They still need groceries, utilities, health services.

      They just can’t get out and run around town running errands like they used to. They may not be able to make it to the mailbox to collect their mail. Oh, just use a computer you say? Well, maybe they don’t know how. Maybe they can’t afford one. Maybe online bill pay services charge money for that convenience? (Property tax collectors and some utilities like water and gas do charge such fees.)

      Maybe they just have busybody do-gooder children or in-laws who pestered them nearly to death to let them take over the finances, despite their being perfectly able to handle it themselves? Maybe it’s just more convenient to let a trusted relative handle it?

      My goodness, if Nana gets her 401K and her IRA confused, you want to declare her incompetent. If Pops doesn’t know the difference between Class A and Class C stock and which has a contingent deferred sales charge, you want to put him in a state institution and take away their firearms freedom.

      Aside from all that, Obama’s executive order grossly violated due process. Even if he were doing the right thing, he did it the wrong, unreasonable, and unconstitutional way. That should bother you. That should annoy the living crap out of you!

  13. The disinformation continues: “…recipients with a mental disorder so severe they cannot work and need someone to handle their benefits.”

    Considering that most Social Security beneficiaries are retired, it’s quite the stretch to say that retired=mental disorder. It’s not that they CANNOT work, it’s that they have retired from it. This is obviously ageist hate speech, and if the retiree is not white, racist as well.

    Having someone handle your finances is no big thing. Perhaps we should restrict other rights to those who are too mentally deficient to handle their own income tax filings?

  14. Dude, I’m no where near retirement, but I want someone to handle my finances And tax returns for me.

    You know, someone who does it professionally, I feel like they’d knock it out of the park.

  15. Since BO put it into effect with a PEO, why go the congress route and risk not getting it passed by several left wing republicans? Why not just have President Trump use a PEO to negate BO’s PEO?

  18. This is what the SSA calls a “representative payee”, someone legally designated to receive your payments and make payments from such funds for your welfare. While many people whose payments go to a payee made the decision themselves to utilize a payee and selected their own payee, that’s not always the case. The SSA can select a payee for you, based on their own decision making criteria and their own authority. Here’s their standard, from their own FAQ on the SSA site:

    “Who needs a representative payee?

    The law requires most minor children and all legally incompetent adults to have payees. We presume an adult is capable to manage his or her own benefits. If it appears this may not be true, we gather evidence to decide if we need to appoint a representative payee.”

    There are SS recipients who all of a sudden find their money going elsewhere. It could be to the nursing home. It could be some firm “non-profit” organization. (An individual may not charge a fee to be a payee, but an organization can.) SSA even allows MINORS to be designated payees?

    Seriously? A teenage kid who at best should be getting an allowance, not handing out allowances from federal funds, is in charge? Minor, who would require a payee of her own, can be someone else’s payee. A teenager, who himself cannot legally buy a firearm, is all of a sudden qualified to make financial decisions for someone whom the government unilaterally determined isn’t qualified to handle a firearm or control their own checkbook.

    Un-F’ing-believable. Is there no demographic the Democrats will not wage war against in their pursuit for power?

  20. “Obama had previously stated that his inability to pass gun control legislation was one of the biggest disappointments of his career and that he would side-step Congress if it was a means to an end to enact his policies. ”

    Just one more shortcomings of Barry’s occupation of the Oval Office ?

  21. There is no one in SSA who has mental health credentials. I swear, if that doofus could have gotten a law through prohibiting sales to those on the Terrorist Watch List, the very next day he would have directed that everybody in America be placed on the Terrorist Watch List. And he would have thought he was just so SLY, nobody would figure out what he was doing. The man defines the term “fool”.

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