The NRA-ILA writes [via ammoland.com]:
On Monday, Barack Obama’s Social Security Administration (SSA) issued the final version of a rule that will doom tens of thousands of law-abiding (and vulnerable) disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients to a loss of Second Amendment rights under the guise of re-characterizing them as “mental defectives.”
The SSA, for the first time in its history, will be coopted into the federal government’s gun control apparatus, effectively requiring Social Security applicants to weigh their need for benefits against their fundamental rights when applying for assistance based on mental health problems.
Barack Obama’s political party and the presidential candidate he personally endorsed and campaigned for suffered perhaps the most dramatic rebuke in the history of American politics with the election of Donald J. Trump.
Far from being humbled or chastened, however, Obama is spending the waning days of his presidency releasing duly convicted felons from prison, making low-level appointments, and pushing pet policy projects, all to do something, anything, to leave his stamp after a lackluster tenure.
The Social Security rule is the final version of a proposal that we reported on earlier this year. Public outcry against the proposed rule was fierce, and the comment period drew over 91,000 responses, the vast majority of them opposing the plan.
The NRA itself submitted detailed comments, taking the proposed rule to task for its many legal problems, its lack of empirical support, and the way it would politicize the SSA’s functions and stigmatize its beneficiaries.
The SSA, however, essentially ignored the NRA’s comments and the tens of thousands of others pointing out problems with the plan and issued a final rule that in most key respects tracks the original proposal.
For example, the SSA did not attempt to answer most of the legal questions raised about its authority, instead deferring to an overbroad and problematic ATF regulation defining who counts under the federal Gun Control Act as a “mental defective” and to Department of Justice guidance on reporting.
The SSA did not explain why, some two decades after the federal background check system came online, it was reversing its earlier determination about its reporting responsibilities and only now asserting a mandate to do so.
Incredibly, the SSA also brushed aside empirical evidence the NRA submitted suggesting that the proposed rule would have no public safety benefit. “We are not attempting to imply a connection between mental illness and a propensity for violence, particularly gun violence,” the SSA wrote. “Rather, we are complying with our obligations under the NIAA, which require us to provide information from our records when an individual falls within one of the categories identified in 18 U.S.C. 922(g).”
This would seem to be the very definition of the sort of arbitrary and capricious rule making prohibited by the Administrative Procedures Act.
The SSA also insisted that it was not stigmatizing those who receive disability insurance or SSI for mental health conditions, arguing that the names of the beneficiaries reported to NICS would not be made public.
What the administration ignores is that it would stigmatize the entire category of beneficiaries subject to reporting.
The administration further acknowledges that the rule would not provide those subject to its terms the ability to defend their suitability to possess firearms before the actual loss of rights took place.
In other words, it offers no due process on the question of losing Second Amendment rights.
Instead, the rule forces affected beneficiaries to file a petition for “restoration” of rights and to somehow prove their possession of firearms would not harm public safety or the public interest, even though the government never established, or tried to establish, the contrary.
Regarding the expense of the psychological and medical evaluations required for this purpose, the administration claims it should be “reasonable,” although it does not and cannot claim it will actually be affordable to those who are affected by the rule.
The major parameters of the final rule are the same as those we detailed in an earlier alert on the proposal. It will affect those who receive SSI or disability insurance because of a listed mental health impairment and who have been assigned a representative payee to manage the benefits because of the person’s mental condition.
The bottom line, however, is that tens of thousands of completely harmless, law-abiding people will lose their rights every year under the rule, a premise the SSA did not even try to refute.
The NRA has already prepared proposals for corrective action, and we certainly hope they will be given favorable consideration by the incoming administration.
In the meantime, this is one more reminder of the petty, partisan politics of Barack Obama, and one more reason to be thankful that in a few short weeks, he will no longer wield the power of the presidency against the nation’s law-abiding gun owners.
—–
About the NRA-ILA:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Visit: www.nra.org
Can Trump undo this?
Yes.
Can we remand this 300% ?
YES. One good overstep deserves a few hundred back.
Can we make the sole recipient of the legislative pressure BHO?
YES.
He can get the aclu-rself to take it to court and we can make it really really really $$$$ for both of them to get this adjudicated.
Next time one of your douchy-liberal acquaintances is wetting xer panties about why no one trusts democrats anymore, show them this article.
I just had to leave this year it would appear YouTube and the interweb have been blowing up about Michelle Obama being a dude a transgender person a man that dresses as a woman there’s some pretty legitimate photos of Michelle Obama having what looks like a penis between her legs you can look it up on the internet yourselves I just thought I’d leave this here.
What possible application to topic does your comment possess?
Short answer: none.
You, sir, need help.
It was a joke Jiminy crickets
Not really, no. At least not lawfully.
You see, while everyone (including NRA) is trying to pin this on Obama, what’s actually happening here is that Congress passed a bill in 2007 called “NICS Improvement Amendments Act”, with said bill signed into law by president Bush.
That law did two things. First, it mandated that all federal agencies share any information on mentally ill people that they have with the NICS database. And second, it established a process to review and remove oneself from the NICS mentally ill list.
That second part was added on behest of NRA and Republicans in Congress, and was part of the deal to pass the law. NRA itself was very enthusiastic about it all back then:
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20071005/the-nics-improvement-bill-myth-and-rea
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20070623/nics-improvement-amendments-act-not-g
Of course, federal government being federal government, it takes years for the cogs to turn, and for the federal agencies to fully comply with the law. This is one such case, of SSA finally doing what the Congress told them to do 9 years ago.
In other words, this is literally the reverse of executive overreach – this is the executive abiding by the requirements placed on it by the legislature.
So the only thing Obama might have to do with it is in a sense of prodding the agencies to comply – but he didn’t write the law, nor did he sign it.
And as for Trump, the only way he could revert it is by directing all federal agencies, including SSA, to basically ignore the law. Which would, of course, be illegal executive overreach and rule by executive fiat. Ah, the irony…
There is a Adolf Hitler move. What’s next? Mental defectives go to the camps? They are injected with toxins as the Nazi did? And their program didn’t restrict itself to Jews and such. Even mentally defective Germans were exterminated as a drag on society.
Obamy is mentally defective, can we send him for ‘treatment’?
“Presidential finding 2017-1
Where as overwhelming evidence exists that most or all of the executive actions of the last 8 years by the late administration have been maliciously unconstitutional, all Federal rules, regulations, actions, and executive orders since January 20, 2009 are hereby repealed and void.
Donald J. Trump
January 20, 2017”
I wouldn’t go so fast. Maybe that far, but nothing is ever that simple.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection is that these regs apply not to anyone that might be considered “mentally defective,” but only to those who have requested the appointment of a conservator to assist them in paying their bills because of mental disability or disease. In the state probate arena, the appointment of a conserevator is generally accompanied by the suspension of all rights as an adult, which thus makes some sense of the administrations position.
I would point out that “suspension of all rights as an adult” is incorrect.
Such a person doesn’t lose their right to a jury trial, to free speech or to be secure in their possessions. The government cannot quarter troops in their house and the person retains the right to remain silent under government questioning etc.
In fact, so far as I can tell there is now, for the first time, an infringement on but one of their rights that is listed in the Bill of Rights.
You are absolutely correct!
The missing and critical component is: (drum roll please) ..Due Process.
“In the state probate arena, the appointment of a conserevator is generally accompanied by the suspension of all rights as an adult, which thus makes some sense of the administrations position.” You are wrong, at least in Texas.
In Texas, when a guardian is appointed, the judge decides what rights to take away. Maybe grandma can’t handle money anymore, but that doesn’t mean she can’t vote, get married/divorced, take you out of the will for bringing a guardianship application “for” her. Additionally, it policy in Texas to do the minimum necessary to protect grandma. It is the policy to look for less restrictive means like grandma’s appointment of you as her agent under a durable power of attorney. The judge doesn’t care that you beat up cousin Billy as a kid and he hates you, so he doesn’t want you managing grandma’s financial affairs. The court also has to review the need for a guardian annually.
In short, Texas law is to preserve as many rights of the ward as possible.
I hope that is a fake social security card, I can make out the number in it.
I know right?
Its the same combination on my luggage!
The NRA provided comments. One of them was ooooooooh boy, this’ll pay for another mailer.
Want an engraved pocket knife with that?
You’re not allowed to be overtly critical of the NRA on this message board. In fact if you become too vehement ( especially by posting actual quotes from LaPierre where he supports gun control “lite” or noting that the NRA was in support of the NFA, GCA, background checks, a national registry of the mentally ill, etc ) you will find that your post will be deleted afterwards or it will not be allowed to post at all.
I’m overly critical of Negotiating Rights Away, but I only do it when the topic of discussion is something they deserve to be criticized for. They were consistently on the right side of the issue at hand here.
Obviously. If they were on the wrong side of gun rights issue EVERY time their support would instantly collapse and the NRA would have ceased to exist. The damage the NRA has already inflicted to the 2’nd amendment ( before and after LaPierre ) will never be undone. Ever.
Since 2012 LaPierre has been pushing for a National Mental Health Registry ( David Gregory, Meet The Press ) and he wants the dreaded Feds ( with their “jack booted thugs” ) to be in charge of it. He can’t make up his mind whether to be all “From my coooold deeead haaaands!!! ” or for the NRA’s own form of “common sense” gun control….to be handled by the Feds of course.
And the vain Kenyan marches on. As someone who gets SS(just for being old) THIS is especially offensive. Add that to Odumbo dissing Israel(setting the clock for Armageddon),claiming he could beat Trump and going on his zilliethed Hawaiian trip and presto! The worst president ever-easily?January 20th can’t come soon enough…
On a trip out West last year saw billboard stating Obamy Boy was ‘Best President Ever’. Fortunately someone with fortitude corrected this Obamination of an error to correctly read “WORST President Ever” . This pile committed treason within his 1st few months in office; should have been prosecuted.
Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, Wilson, and Truman all still hold the title of worst president ever. Obama doesn’t even come close to those mass murderers.
His incompetence in the the Middle East & letting all of the undocumented scum into the US qualifies him as a mass murderer. Let’s not forget ISIS is the Hildabeast’s & Barry’s illegitimate bastard child. Still my vote for worst ever.
So, Chris, it’s official.
You were absent from the entire American History course…
A long winter’s nap that was…
Those were American presidents.
Uh no!
Thankfully our Lord (and Savior) Obama is doing something about those damn geriatric flash mobs and school shootings!
A lot of people don’t know this but 100% of all mass shootings anywhere ever were committed by octogenarians or people even older! Also, people in this age bracket account for 98% of all murders, 99% of violent domestic cases, 92% of armed robberies and 78% of non-negligent manslaughter cases involving a gun. Also, 100% of shootings involving a dispute over “early bird” specials at Perkins are perpetrated by those over 65.
All praise be to Obama for saving us from the scourge of senior citizen terrorism!
Wow. I now have more respect for our resident trolls. Making this shit up and typing it out is surprisingly hard work.
I had no idea senior citizens were so dangerous! Well, I am off to cap Grandma and Grandpa. When I heard them talking about being Crips, I thought it just because she is in wheelchair and he has a walker.
Well played.
Honestly though, sneak in while they’re asleep, move the hardware out of reach and use a pillow.
Then rearrange everything in the house.
Technocrats gotta technocrat. It isn’t liberalism, though most technocrats tend to be liberals, it’s the belief that people are to be managed in order to achieve a placid and comfortable society. Rights aren’t relevant, because rights come with sharp corners and things which offend or upset.
My good friend you just described a Marxist socialist government in a nutshell. The good and the safety of the country is that a higher priority then individual rights. This is not what this country was founded on and this is one of the reasons we went to war with Great Britain. Has this moron president read a history book or is he too busy flipping through the pages of marxist socialist propaganda literature.
You have come to a world without hate, without fear, without conflict. No war, no disease, no crime. None of the ancient evils. Landru seeks tranquillity. Peace for all. The universal good.
You will be absorbed. Your individuality will merge into the unity of the good, and in your submergence into the common being of the Body, you will find contentment and fulfillment. You will experience the absolute good.
It is the will of Landru. You will be absorbed.
Ah, the moral/social/political themes of Star Trek: TOS. The fact that they are still issues today is a sad commentary on the ignorance and pigheadedness of the human race.
It starts with the notion that the “country” has its own “good and safety.” People have “good and safety.” “Country” is a sometimes convenient bookkeeping notion.
Can we get a new regulation in January to put legislators, ex-presidents, and cabinet members on the no-buy list, because they’re clearly a threat to the safety of others?
Take away the best chance of protection against a threat from those least likely to be able to physically defend themselves.
Brilliant.
Not brilliant, diabolical:
Hurry up and die so we can quit paying you. It’ll help balance the SS trust fund…
You’re obviously a moron or a very young person which brings us back to the more on status. You will get old and hopefully you don’t get hurt on your job because if you do you’re going to be in the same boat as the rest of us. There are a lot of disabled people in this country that are young and have horrible disabilities caused by accidents work injury and disease like myself. And let me tell you I don’t appreciate your crappy comments about how you could balance the Social Security Budget just let everyone die. I could say the same thing about your parents and you because we all get old we all get sick and we all die. You may be one of the lucky ones to be healthy. Not everyone in this country or world is that lucky.
This really concerns me. I’ve been a type 1 juvenile onset diabetic since the age of 7 years old. This disease has slowly taking my left eye some of my vision in my right eye to the point that I am legally blind. I can still see and I can still shoot an inch and a half group at 25 feet with my 1911. I’m very confident with firearms and it never had any sort of felony arrest or anything like that. I see 7 doctors to manage my disease. ICN opthamologist retinal specialist endocrinologist your prolly just general practitioner and a couple others including a psychologist. My psychologist treats me for PTSD that I developed from being a firefighter for many years. I am not considered dangerous to myself or others nor have I ever been I’ve never been Baker acted never been institutionalized or anything like that. Now this ingrate of a president is going to disgrace me and hold me hostage because of my illness this is flipping ridiculous. This is total discrimination against disabled people no other way to call it. It’s like making a black man ride on the back of the bus again somebody needs to absolutely shut this President down politically so that he cannot destroy are civil and constitutional freedoms in this country as soon as possible please mr. Trump. I would like to share some input on what other people here on this board thinks and have a bit of a conversation back and forth I welcome it in case anyone has any questions. I’m just tired of being discriminated against I feel like a black man at a Klan party. LOL
Sounds like an ADA claim waiting to happen to me.
I’m not very educated on placing a lawsuit or going about that who would you recommend I contact? I would like to get this started right away this is absolutely apprehensively to me and thousands of other people.
Honestly, I would contact the NRA and have them set you up with a local(ish, depending on where you live) lawyer that knows this stuff really well.
In order to sue you’ll have to have standing and unless you lose your guns I doubt you’d have it. However, you very well may be able to set up a trust or some other type of legal entity that shields you from the effects of this bullshit by playing a shell game with “who” owns the firearms in question. I’m not a lawyer though so I’d contact one. I’ve found that the NRA will set you up with some damn fine legal eagles and the consult is generally free. If it doesn’t pan out all you’re out is two phone calls and whatever little time it took to make them.
Hearing your story I have a kinda personal question for you. If I may ask, is your loss of sight a natural progression of your diabetes or are your sugar levels all over the place/basically uncontrolled for some reason? I was diagnosed as a Type II diabetic about a month and a half ago but my sugar levels are already under control (long story and I’m very, very lucky). My doc bitches every time I see her that she has all these other patients that can’t/won’t manage their diabetes and end up blind or getting their feet cut off etc. and wants me to volunteer to speak to people around me about getting in shape/eating right to avoid serious problems down the road. I’m curious if that’s something that just happens with some Type I folks because their personal version of diabetes is just a real pain in the dick? In other words, is this kind of problem later in life just unavoidable for some diabetics?
Best of luck to you with both your disorder and whatever legal troubles our jackass in chief has created for you.
I’m glad you asked I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1979 my blood sugar level at the time I went to the ER with my parents was over 870. The surgeon that diagnosed me diagnosed me as acute appendicitis they hooked me up to 2 D50 which is pure glucose sugar and I started going into respiratory failure. The only woman diabetic doctor specialist in the hospital had parked her car that night outside in the doctors parking nearest the emergency room. She was walking down the hallway and saw my mother very upset and yelling at the surgeon that she didn’t think it was appendicitis because her brother had it and it wasn’t the same symptoms. The diabetic doctor ask what was going on and was trying to call my mother down when my mother started explaining the symptoms I was having and the diagnosis the doctor had given me the surgeon and she asked my mother if she could do a second evaluation and of course my mom said yes. She smelled my breath and immediately smelled ketones and gave me 5 units of regular insulin 30 minutes later my blood sugar started dropping and she saved my life. I started developing eyesight problems in 1981 with floaters in my eyes. It was a lot harder in the seventies and eighties to control your blood sugar because blood testing equipment was just in its infancy and was very expensive to purchase. I was forced to use urine test strips where you dip the strip into urine and it gives you a color and you match the color to the bottle to see what your sugar level is. The problem is with the test as you don’t start to spill sugar into your urine until you’re over 200 period normal blood sugar is 80 to 150. I did the best I could with what I had available to me and I run perfect sugar levels now. My hemoglobin A1c is 5.7 so I’m damn near perfect. Some people are genetically disposed 2 eye problems with diabetes I personally have had over 30 surgeries to save my vision including the removal of my left eye replaced by a 20 millimeter orbital in my existing muscle tissue from diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. I still have some Vision in my right eye butt hardly no peripheral vision. So I can still see but just limited quite a bit but I can still see my sites on my hand guns and I can still identify targets and what’s beyond them so there’s no safety issue whatsoever. A man’s gotta know his limitations and I definitely know mine.
Bastard ‘Bama is an ingrate of the highest order. This pile has hacked away at our way of life because HE thinks HE is the smartest asshole on earth. The dumbest that ever lived in my book.
When I was a kid growing up in California older conservative people would say social security was wrong that it could be abused by the government in same way to control people. Those people were laughed at and called conspiracy kooks.
The only way to stop this is to appoint someone who will fire those responsible for this crime if they continue to follow this policy. Government workers are becoming the weapon of government against the people.
But that is only a short term solution. The best action would be to dissolve the SSA completely and make the individual responsible for their old age needs. That is the way it use to be in this country. Social Security became a slush fund now it is a weapon used to take your property, ie you guns from you.
You are obviously a healthy person. It used to be I could not buy insurance in the United States. So I had to take care of myself for many years through buying prescriptions over the counter which brings me to the next topic. A bottle of Lantus insulin before Obamacare was $109 out the door at Walgreens. It is now $298 out the door at Walgreens. Obama has caused all these drug manufacturers to up their prices to ridiculous rates so you can’t even afford to take care of yourself anymore. He’s put your health in the control of political b*******. You will get sick you will get old it’s going to happen to everyone. So enjoy yourself while you’re young but don’t forget about becoming old because it is going to happen and when it does do you want your rights trampled all over or erased? He has basically Obama has basically taken Health Care away from the people who need it the most and implemented is Obamacare to cover his ass. It’s the most screwed-up medical system we have ever had in this country or any other country for that matter. You have far better medical coverage in Cuba than you do here in the United States with this so-called Obamacare. Believe me I wish I could be healthy and be able to go back to work but that’s long gone now that I am legally blind I should not be discriminated against just because I got sick from a disease that I did not catch from using a dirty needle or traveling to some 3rd world country just developed at 7 and I’ve almost died from it multiple times but I use the same approach to life as I always do adapt improvise overcome. But how are you supposed to do that when they take your way of life away from you or your medicine?
I hope Trump’s folks are taking detailed notes (I’m sure they are), so they can remand all of Obama’s executive actions/ orders; items such as these. I’m also concerned about the many things he’s done that haven’t made any headlines or EAs that fall under the radar.
I am no attorney, but it would seem that the social security recipient who will lose their Second Amendment rights without due process would have grounds for a lawsuit against this unconstitutional curtailment of rights.
Lawsuits are expensive & time consuming, something most seniors have very little left of. We should be able to confiscate the untold MILLIONS ‘Bamy has robbed from us.
this is some bull sh. eeeeeeeiiiiiiiyyyhhhtttt!!!!! OBama, leave already, we are so done with you and your need for constant screwing with the people. Go and start your career as a lobbyist already and leave this country alone you bum.
Cannot get to the inauguration day fast enough I swear.
I want ‘Bamy deported to some 3rd world shit hole he is so fond of. Get the bastard the hell out the country completely.
And George Soros.
I had a liberal tell me Monday that Hillary was never going to take away “my” guns. She said the same thing about the current dude a few years ago. Nice talking point suitable for framing but definitely not true.
I seem to recall TTAG even feeling we had little to worry about because guns were off the radar for the first 4 years. Guns are never off their radar, you can’t pull the kind of shit they have in mind unless people are disarmed. Venezuela is a perfect example.
Breast implants should be on that list. I consider them to be weapons!
Ok I need some help on this vague report. How is the SS going to do this with the ATF? A person is on SS for whatever and they are going to turn them in and the ATF will then deny them the right to purchase a weapon? Or is the ATF going to try and track down everyone (a huge undertaking) or what exactly?
Also what disqualifies you to have a weapon? Depression? Being committed? Anxiety?
Where are the details in this action?
Oh, N Y state was just grabbing somebody’s guns again after a hospital stay, so the feds had to find a way they could do that, too.
And you wonder how civil wars start. It’s coming….wait for it.
Frankly I don’t think the left will relent …..which will end in death and destruction.
If I remember correctly,
a few years ago an attempt was made by the SSI or the VA to actually go to the persons home to try to take his guns.
He received a warning letter from the government agency telling him he no longer had the right to keep guns in his home and they if he did not surrender his guns they would come and take them.
This man took a copy of the letter to his local sheriff.
When the government agency came on the appointed day to take his guns, the sheriff came and stopped them and told him he would arrest them if they tried to take his guns.
If you get such a letter, you need to immediately
call your sheriff and tell him they are coming to take your guns.
If the sheriff is worth his weight, he will do his
constitutional duty to stop them.
Call your congressman.
Call your state legislator.
Call your governor.
Have the state declare they will Interpose.
Rights come from God or nature’s God, not from the generosity of the state. The Right of the people to keep and bear arms comes from God and can not be taken away by the state. You can only give up that right by committing a felony. You do not give up rights because something happens to you, and becoming mentally ill is something that happens to you.
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