Here’s the latest nuts-about-guns tidbit. The $631 billion defense bill now before Congress has a line inserted by the Veterans Affairs Department which puts the names of veterans deemed too mentally incompetent to handle their own affairs into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System which would prohibit them from buying or owning a firearm — a perfectly rational addition.
But a group of lawmakers headed by Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, objects. He and 20 others want the bill to stipulate that any veteran can own or buy a gun unless a judge or magistrate deems that particular veteran to be a danger to himself or others.
Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma argued:
“All I am saying is, let them have their day in court if you are going to take away a fundamental right given under the Constitution.”
Sounds reasonable, but it isn’t.
When the VA declares a discharged service man or women incapable of managing their own affairs and appoints a fiduciary to manage their penions and disability benefits, their names automatically go into the background check system.
That protection should remain. Those who can’t manage their lives have no business with firearms. The country has had more than enough proof that the mentally incompetent can be a deadly threat to others.
If the law must be changed, it could allow the appointed fiduciaries to request that the veteran in their care be examined by a competent professional to determine his or her fitness to own a firearm.
Give veterans judged incompetent “their day in court,” as the senator argues, but keep guns out of their hands until they have been professionally cleared to give them and those around them a greater degree of safety.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
