Proposal For Social Security Role In Gun Control Advances

     The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved a set of proposed Social Security regulations that will almost certainly touch on gun control. Apparently, Social Security will be giving information on some individuals who have been appointed representative payees to handle their Social Security benefits. These proposed regulations should appear in the Federal Register next week if Social Security follows its normal practice.

     Once the proposed regulations are published in the Federal Register, the public will be able to comment on them. The agency must consider the comments. If Social Security still wants to go ahead with the regulations, a final version of the regulations must be submitted to OMB. If OMB approves the regulations they are published in the Federal Register and soon go into effect. This process ordinarily takes many months even when there are only a few comments. In this case, there may be a large number of comments. Perhaps, enough pressure will be put on Social Security to complete action on this proposal before President Obama leaves office but I would be surprised. This proposal has moved slowly to this point. If the proposal is still pending after the election its fate will be in the hands of the new President.

     Gun advocates have argued that people with only minor problems will be denied access to firearms. I consider this argument ridiculous. In my experience, Social Security only appoints representative payees in fairly extreme situations. A few clients I've had who were assigned representative payees posed a risk of deliberately harming others. Many, many more were at risk of suicide. Almost all posed a risk of accidentally harming themselves or others if given access to firearms.

     The earlier reports suggested that the agency would create some mechanism for claimants with representative payees to appeal a decision to report them to the database used to limit firearms purchases for those with criminal backgrounds or serious mental illness. This may create a significant new workload for Social Security.

     In any case, individuals with representative payees will be unable to buy firearms. Nobody is going to seize the weapons they already own.

    Update: The White House has just issued a press release on this proposal.