Feb 16, 2017

Senate Votes To Allow Mentally Ill Claimants With Rep Payees To Buy Guns

     The Senate has now joined the House of Representatives in voting to block regulations adopted during the Obama Administration that would have prevented some individuals with representative payees drawing disability benefits from Social Security from buying firearms. 
     Great work by all those in the Obama Administration who slow walked these regulations. The GOP couldn't have blocked these regs without your help. Oh, I know, you rushed it from Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) to Final Regulation. I'm talking about all the time this was being ever so slowly considered before the NPRM was published.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

They would have anyway Chuck. They would have just stuck it in a must pass CR or passed it through reconciliation. They have total control, elections have consequences. The NRA always wins.

Anonymous said...

Am I entirely wrong in understanding that the now repealed rules would only require gun store owners be informed that the purchaser has a representative payee and would not have actually prevented the gun store owner from selling the gun?

Anonymous said...

The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities wrote a letter asking the Senate to nullify. Their issue was that the rule unfairly scapegoats one group of citizens--beneficiaries allowed on a mental impairment with rep payees--on the basis of zero evidence (e.g. if the preponderance of (any?) mass shooters had fit this category, I think we would have heard about it.)

To be allowed for a DI benefit, one needs substantial medical evidence, so basically the rule implied that those who received treatment for an illness were a greater danger to society than those who hadn't. Is this an incentive for someone to seek treatment?

In addition, it violated the privacy pledge SSA made when they first issued SSNs and created a slippery slope re: medical records (what group do we next discriminate against without due process based on confidential information?) I am very surprised that a disability lawyer who one would think would be an advocate for his clients equal rights under the law would support this rule.

Anonymous said...

Just a point - there are many reasons beyond "mass shootings" that someone who has both a rep payee and a debilitating mental illness should not be able to purchase a gun. Suicide being the number one reason. To suggest than anyone with a mental illness on DI would have been reported to NICS is a blatant misrepresentation of what this rule proposed. This was a specific subset. And I would be interested in the argument for why someone who fit that subpopulation should reasonably be allowed to purchase a gun? SCOTUS has already ruled that there can be restrictions, so don't give me
"2nd Amendment" blah blah blah. And there are due process protections through the ability to appeal.

Anonymous said...

Should someone with a rep payee be prevented from performing parental duties, or even the ability to become pregnant or father a child? Should they be denied the ability to live alone? What other civil rights can be denied? How detailed must documentation be to justify what a disabled person is legally allowed to do? What are the due process rights for establishing this, and can a decision be appealed up to the Supreme Court? Will they be provided free legal help?

Anonymous said...

That well-known right-wing paramilitary group the ACLU also opposed this rule.

Anonymous said...

The ACLU is certainly not always right.

Anonymous said...

How many felons that cannot legally own a firearm will be voting for this provision in Congress?

Anonymous said...

Fitting that it happened on a day when I met with a new client that will most probably be found in need of a representative payee. I commented to my office manager that it would not surprise me if he went postal...

Sarah VR said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
M.R.Hawks said...

Examples of people who have representative payees: cancer patients, people who have MS or other serious illnesses, ex-Veterans and others who have mobility challenges, and those who have suffered head injury and many other people who have never committed violent crimes, or any crime for that matter. The ONLY people who should be restricted from guns are those who have a history of violence. This was badly done from the beginning and THAT'S why it was unsuccessful. You are targeting the wrong individuals.

M.R.Hawks said...

Examples of people who have representative payees: cancer patients, people who have MS or other serious illnesses, ex-Veterans and others who have mobility challenges, and those who have suffered head injury and many other people who have never committed violent crimes, or any crime for that matter. The ONLY people who should be restricted from guns are those who have a history of violence. This was badly done from the beginning and THAT'S why it was unsuccessful. You are targeting the wrong individuals.

Anonymous said...

12:41 you didn't read the rule at all did you? Nope, just open your mouth and say stupid stuff. Your entire post is incorrect.