|
VA Watchdog Stuff...
cups, hats, shirts...
click on item to order
and support the site.
Be sure to get all four
VA Watchdog dot Org
RSS feeds --
Daily VA
News Flashes
House CVA
Veterans' News
Senate CVA
Veterans' News
VA Press
Releases
Download your
free copy of the
2008 VA benefits
handbook here...
|
Printer-Friendly Version
BILL WOULD REMOVE SOME VETS' NAMES FROM GUN "NO
BUY" LIST -- Sen. Richard Burr: "This is a
constitutional
issue. The national database is for criminals,
not for folks
who have troubles handling their own financial
affairs."
For Sen. Burr's press release on this
legislation...click here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/scva08/scva062608-2.htm
Story here...
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/244/story/45466.html
Story below:
-------------------------
Senator wants veterans' names removed from
gun list
By Barbara Barrett
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Since a severely mentally ill man rampaged through Virginia
Tech last year, killing 32 people before turning a gun on himself,
Congress and several states have been working to tighten rules on who can
legally purchase a firearm.
But a push in the U.S. Senate would remove from the national background
check the names of 115,000 veterans who have been declared "mentally
defective" — and would prevent the Department of Veterans Affairs from
adding any more names unless the agency goes through a judicial system.
 The
problem, says the senator behind the efforts, is that the veterans were
added not because they were a danger to themselves or to others, but
because they were assigned fiduciary guardians by the Department of
Veterans Affairs.
"This is a constitutional issue," said Sen. Richard Burr of North
Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.
"The (national database) is for criminals, not for folks who have troubles
handling their own financial affairs."
His bill would allow the agency to submit only the names of those who have
been declared dangerous by a judge, magistrate or other judicial
authority.
Burr said he wants to protect Second Amendment rights but isn't trying to
give guns to dangerously ill people.
"Clearly, we want to (include) people that reach the point of mental
instability where access to firearms is not an option," Burr said.
Burr succeeded this summer in getting his measure tacked to a popular
veterans health bill now headed to the full Senate floor.
But while Burr is supported by the National Rifle Association and several
veterans groups, others fear the move could lead to an increase in gun
deaths. Gun-control organizations argue that veterans have higher rates of
suicide than non-veterans and so may be more at risk.
"To take this group out of the system and give them ready access to guns,
that's just not a good idea," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of
the Violence Policy Center in Washington. "It's a sad fact that veterans
have increased risk of suicide and increased risk of mass shootings, but
that's reality."
In the past decade, the Department of Veterans Affairs has sent about
115,000 names to the National Instant Criminals Background Check System,
known as the NICS, under an agreement with the FBI.
The names include those veterans adjudicated mentally incompetent or who
have been committed to a mental institution, but not others who are
mentally ill, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs.
The national log is the database that gun shops use to check for names of
those trying to legally purchase firearms. It was set up as part of the
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993.
Mark Seavey, a lobbyist for the American Legion, supports Burr's proposal
and said it isn't right to lump veterans with financial troubles into the
group of people on the no-buy list.
He also worries about broadly stereotyping veterans who suffer from
post-traumatic stress disorder but still have control of their affairs.
"We didn't want to stigmatize people," Seavey said. "It should be anybody
who actually is a threat to themselves or others. I think veterans as
individuals ought to be given the constitutional rights they fought for."
With the highly publicized suicides of veterans returning from the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, along with increasing reports of warriors suffering
from mental trauma, the issue of taking away Second Amendment rights is
sensitive to politicians.
In debating Burr's measure recently, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia
Democrat, said he wants to fully respect veterans and their service.
"I feel an obligation to veterans to respect what they've done and what
they've given and how they've suffered," Rockefeller said in a meeting of
the Veterans' Affairs Committee. "And it just causes me not to want to
oppose the ... amendment. In fact I very strongly don't want to oppose
it."
Only Democratic Sens. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, who is the committee's
chairman, and Patty Murray of Washington opposed the bill -- and then only
because they wanted a fuller hearing process.
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
Don't forget to read all of today's VA
News Flashes (click here)
Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage
email Larry
(go
back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home Page) |
Military
Medical Malpractice
Legal
Network
VA Watchdog Stuff...
cups, hats, shirts...
click on item to order
and support the site.
|
