House Passes Bill To Help Vets With Mental Illness Buy Guns

[Jimbo101]

Huffington Post

Objections that 20 veterans a day kill themselves, mostly with guns, did not stop the measure.

The House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday to allow thousands of veterans who are disabled or have mental health conditions to buy guns.

Under a law signed by President George W. Bush in the wake of a mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, federal agencies such as the Veterans Administration were required to add the names of people deemed “mentally defective” to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, to block them from buying weapons.

The VA defined such individuals as those who receive monetary benefits, and have a fiduciary because they lack “the mental capacity to manage his or her own financial affairs regarding disbursement of funds without limitation, and is either rated incompetent by VA or adjudged to be under legal disability by a court of competent jurisdiction.”

There are an estimated 174,000 veterans who have been added to the background check system for many different reasons. The VA estimated in 2015 that about 19,000 of those people suffer from schizophrenia, 15,000 have severe post-traumatic stress, 11,000 suffer from dementia, about 5,000 are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and 4,000 are severely depressed.

The bill, dubbed the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act, stops the VA from referring any of those veterans to the background check system. It passed 240 to 175, on a nearly party-line vote.

[Worried senior]

1. Maybe they want

the mentally ill vets to commit suicide, won't need care if they do.

[lpbk2713]

2. The NRA and the Gun Lobbies should be thrilled to pieces.

What happens as a result doesn't really matter to them.

[samir.g]

3. No one with PTSD should own a firearm

[kacekwl]

4. Why waste money helping sick vets when

they can just end the pain themselves quickly. And help the NRA earn for their corporate partners.

[Initech]

5. We should introduce a truth in labeling bill.

Religious freedom has nothing to do with religious freedom, but everything to do with discrimination. Veterans protection has nothing to do with protecting veterans, but everything to do with selling more guns. . Hearing protection has nothing to do with hearing protection, but is about legalizing silencers. Come on GOP how about some truth in advertising!