Obama is trying to backdoor gun control again. This time he wants bureaucrats in D.C. (not family members or even local authorities) to determine if old people on Social Security should be able to own a gun. In other words, if you can’t ‘manage your own affairs’, then the feds will take away your right to own a gun:
FOX NEWS – The Obama administration wants to keep people collecting Social Security benefits from owning guns if it is determined they are unable to manage their own affairs, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The push, which could potentially affect millions whose monthly disability payments are handled by others, is intended to bring the Social Security Administration in line with laws that prevent gun sales to felons, drug addicts, immigrants in the United States illegally, and others, according to the paper.
The language of federal gun laws restricts ownership to people who are unable to manage their own affairs due to “marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease” – which could potentially affect a large group within Social Security, the LA Times reported.
If Social Security, which has never taken part in the background check system, uses the same standard as the Department of Veterans Affairs – which is the idea floated – then millions of beneficiaries could be affected, with about 4.2 million adults receiving monthly benefits that are managed by “representative payees.”
The latest move is part of the efforts by President Obama to strengthen gun control following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012.
Critics are blasting the plan, saying that expanding the list of people who cannot own guns based on financial competence is wrongheaded.
The ban, they argue, would keep guns out of the hands of some dangerous people, but would also include people who simply have a bad memory or have a hard time balancing a checkbook.
Of course there are legitimate people who this will catch who shouldn’t own a gun because they don’t have control of their faculties. But that’s still not a decision for a federal bureaucrat to make.
But you know as well as I do, the way ‘manage your own affairs’ will be defined will be so loose that it will be used to take guns away from legitimate owners, violating their Constitutional right to bear arms. Seriously, when was the last time you heard about some old person shooting and killing a bunch of people?
The truth is Obama can’t enact gun control through Congress, so he is using his pen and his phone to go around Congress once again to accomplish his goals.