(Freedom.news) The Obama administration is conducting a covert war against the Second Amendment using the federal bureaucracy to implement anti-gun policies it cannot get passed into law via Congress.
As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the Social Security Administration has put forth details of a new rule that would essentially bar many who are currently receiving federal disability payments from owning firearms.
The proposed rule is part of President Obama’s push to tighten gun laws while bypassing Congress, which he has repeatedly said he wants to do.
News of the plan to add some Social Security recipients to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, was first uncovered by the Los Angeles Times last summer and has faced fierce opposition from gun rights groups ever since, the WFB noted.
President Obama announced in January that he was officially ordering the Social Security Administration to start the process for implementing the rule, the site noted.
According to the rule, the SSA would be required to report recipients with a representative payee who meet certain criteria to the NICS, which would prevent them from being able to legally buy or possess a gun. And currently, there are millions of recipients who have their finances managed by a representative payee, though most of them will not be reported to NICS under the proposed rule.
That is a big chance from when the policy was originally proposed. It was initially reported that the rule would mirror one implemented by the Veterans Administration, which affects all veterans with a payee.
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Though the SSA rule limits the scope of those banned from owning guns compared to the VA’s rule, it could still target a potentially large group of people.
“We recognize that there is no perfect fit between: (1) Our adjudication regarding a claimant’s entitlement to benefits and determination of whether to designate a representative payee; and (2) the regulatory definition of an individual who is subject to the Federal mental health prohibitor,” the proposal reads. “Considering the relevant regulatory factors, discussed above, however, we believe that there is a reasonable and appropriate fit between the criteria we use to decide whether some of our beneficiaries are disabled and require a representative payee and the Federal mental health prohibitor.”
As you might imagine, gun rights groups were outraged by the rule.
“The Social Security Administration’s proposal doesn’t require an individual to be adjudicated mentally defective or to pose a risk to himself or others,” Lars Dalesiede, a NRA spokesman, said. “Instead they are set to strip away your constitutional rights just because you meet a set of criteria established by a group of faceless bureaucrats you’ll never meet. That puts thousands of Americans in the terrible position of choosing whether to pay their bills or give up their constitutional rights.”
The group called the president’s push for the new rule “embarrassing and shameful.”
More:
- Bank’s voicemail says it no longer lends to firearms dealers
- Cruz, Lee take aim at Justice Department’s anti-business ‘Operation Chokepoint’
- Hillary Clinton’s Six Step Plan to Disarm the American People – Guns.news
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