all you mental defectives out there on SSI....

[Jersey mike]

you better get a load of this, date today 12/28/16;

Last week, the Obama administration put the finishing touches on a new policy that would deprive recipients of disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) of their Second Amendment rights. The administration will now characterize those citizens as "mental defectives," thereby having their ability to own a firearm subject to the federal Gun Control Act.
Supplemental Security Income helps blind, disabled, and elderly people with little to no income.  Previously, it was understood that "mentally defective" referred to one's mental health. Citizens who have been institutionalized against their will are restricted from owning a firearm. The new definition of "mentally defective" has nothing to do with being mentally ill.
The Social Security Administration released its final decision after a period of open comments that drew more than 91,000 responses, including a response from the NRA. Although Obama likes to empty out Guantanamo Bay of dangerous terrorists and commute the sentences of criminals guilty of breaking federal firearms laws, he doesn't like law-abiding American citizens to possess firearms.


https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/12/28/obama-admin-yanks-2a-rights-from-ssi-recipients/

[Pete]

Has any SSI receiver committed murder or mass murder?

Or is Oboob fixing another non problem rather than address a real problem!

I do not know just asking? I have not heard of any.

[Bighead]

Next it will be that anyone who works to pay taxes that support over half the people in this country will fall under the same definition

[old2soon]

Nam Vet Motorcycle Rider Retired Opinionated Uh VERY Opinionated Ah-crap they're coming to take me away haha!  RIDE SAFE.

[therapist]

That was first reported July of 2015.

Although this news was reported in some quarters as an attempt to bar all Social Security recipients from gun ownership, what was apparently under discussion would pertain exclusively to the subset of Social Security disability recipients who have been deemed incompetent to handle their own financial affairs.

If you need someone to take care of your affairs, you probably aren't responsible enough to mess with guns. Sounds like common sense to me (which isn't very common these days).

[Gavin_Sons]

That was first reported July of 2015.

Although this news was reported in some quarters as an attempt to bar all Social Security recipients from gun ownership, what was apparently under discussion would pertain exclusively to the subset of Social Security disability recipients who have been deemed incompetent to handle their own financial affairs.

If you need someone to take care of your affairs, you probably aren't responsible enough to mess with guns. Sounds like common sense to me (which isn't very common these days).

that makes no sense to me. Just because you get old and can't do numbers like you use to and someone else has to figure out your finances, let's take your guns away and deem you a criminal.  you're right, common sense is not all that common.

[Gavin_Sons]

Also, aren't there lots of people of retirement age, 65-75 that are on SSI? Not a thing wrong with them except having low income.

[G-Man]

That was first reported July of 2015.

Although this news was reported in some quarters as an attempt to bar all Social Security recipients from gun ownership, what was apparently under discussion would pertain exclusively to the subset of Social Security disability recipients who have been deemed incompetent to handle their own financial affairs.

If you need someone to take care of your affairs, you probably aren't responsible enough to mess with guns. Sounds like common sense to me (which isn't very common these days).

that makes no sense to me. Just because you get old and can't do numbers like you use to and someone else has to figure out your finances, let's take your guns away and deem you a criminal.  you're right, common sense is not all that common.

Disarm those with the highest probability of being harmed. 

[Jess from VA]

Also, aren't there lots of people of retirement age, 65-75 that are on SSI? Not a thing wrong with them except having low income.

NO.  Social security retirement is based on age (and that you earned enough quarters to qualify, or you get a portion of a dead family member's benefits)

SSI is based on disability (not age alone); disease or injury, physical or mental.  And it is all (100% )or nothing, whereas each VA disability (disability related to military service and service connected) is rated from 0 to 100 percent.  VA then assigns a combined disability evaluation for all service connected disabilities, and it is NOT just adding them up.

There is a legitimate question of whether an individual receiving 100% disability for mental problems alone under SSI or VA (or even 50 or 70 percent VA disability rating from VA) is safe to possess and use firearms.  And the fair, due process method for a determination would be a hearing and an administrative determination IN EACH INDIVIDUAL CASE.  

Of all the various mental disabilities in the DSM, Paranoid Schizophrenia is one where taking a guys guns away is a damn good idea (lots of these guys do (just) OK if they stay on their meds,  but they go off their meds all the time, and then they hear voices and often act like lunatics (cause they are). And serious chronic Depression, often results in suicide (made easier with firearms).

Both VA and SSI also have a separate administrative determination (not the same as degree of mental disability, though clearly related) as to whether any disability recipient is capable or competent to handle their own disability benefits (money).  I did these determinations for VA.  And at least with VA, they start with a presumption that the veteran is competent in every case, and need clear evidence to the contrary to rebut that presumption.

One thing that happened often enough was the old veteran's family members (who often took care of him) coming forward and complaining that the old guy tended to give his money benefits away to other old, homeless vets, or lost them in poker games, or drank them up.  He was not crazy or dangerous or mental at all, he was just old and way past giving a crap about frugal money management.  So the family members that take care of him ask VA to give them his money so their expenses in feeding, clothing and housing him are partially covered.  Pretty fair deal really.  And NOWHERE in that administrative determination about competence to handle money was any finding that the old guy was mental or dangerous or untrustworthy with firearms, that issue was never brought up, was never considered, was never mentioned.  So how should that determination be used to strip 2d amendment rights?  It's shouldn't.  

Some old guys chronically screwed up their direct deposit (benefit) checking accounts, and wrote bad checks, so the family wanted to take that away from him for simple good order and discipline.  Again, no looney tunes involved, just bad math skills.  

Any system that automatically removes an otherwise lawful firearm owner of his 2d amendment rights is wrong, and unconstitutional.  Of course, the 2d amendment haters clearly don't care a bit about that.  An individual hearing and due process determination is necessary and proper, and will take time and money.  So do it, if you really think a guy is mentally unstable, you are duty bound to do it.

Just as a comparison of essential civil liberties guaranteed by our constitution, would anybody agree that a broad sweeping removal (by regulation only) of certain people's rights to free speech, silence under interrogation, right to counsel, right to trial, right to a jury,  with no due process rights to a hearing and fair determination would be OK?????   Of course they wouldn't.

Hey, this guy has had his 5th amendment rights removed, so we can beat a confession out of him, right?

You know, chronic repeat felons are real assholes, so lets take away their right to (appointed) counsel after two convictions, that'll show them.  As tantalizing as that sounds, no one would support that, and even if they did, it would never pass judicial review.

Some old people should not be driving anymore.  So do we just yank everyone's license after they are 75, 80, 85?  That won't fly either.

All of us aging VRCCers are looking right down the road at these aging issues (me too).  I'm not sitting still for losing any of my rights just because I'm getting old and eccentric (and oh yeah, highly conservative with a healthy distaste for our overreaching, overtaxing, overspending Fed who at some point have forgotten that they are supposed to work for the people and not for themselves). If you think I'm getting on the bus to the old folks camp, think again.  I am armed and dangerous to any who would treat me thus.  And fully mentally competent.  If you want my guns, you'll have to use yours to get mine.

[therapist]

That was first reported July of 2015.

Although this news was reported in some quarters as an attempt to bar all Social Security recipients from gun ownership, what was apparently under discussion would pertain exclusively to the subset of Social Security disability recipients who have been deemed incompetent to handle their own financial affairs.

If you need someone to take care of your affairs, you probably aren't responsible enough to mess with guns. Sounds like common sense to me (which isn't very common these days).

that makes no sense to me. Just because you get old and can't do numbers like you use to and someone else has to figure out your finances, let's take your guns away and deem you a criminal.   you're right, common sense is not all that common.

Being deemed incompetent involves a hearing, with a judge and mental health professionals. It is not entered into lightly. We are not talking about people who "can't do numbers". These are people who are a danger to themselves.

[Jess from VA]

That was first reported July of 2015.

Although this news was reported in some quarters as an attempt to bar all Social Security recipients from gun ownership, what was apparently under discussion would pertain exclusively to the subset of Social Security disability recipients who have been deemed incompetent to handle their own financial affairs.

If you need someone to take care of your affairs, you probably aren't responsible enough to mess with guns. Sounds like common sense to me (which isn't very common these days).

that makes no sense to me. Just because you get old and can't do numbers like you use to and someone else has to figure out your finances, let's take your guns away and deem you a criminal.   you're right, common sense is not all that common.

Being deemed incompetent involves a hearing, with a judge and mental health professionals. It is not entered into lightly. We are not talking about people who "can't do numbers". These are people who are a danger to themselves.

Being deemed mentally incompetent in a State court hearing is one thing, but what we are talking about here is not the same thing.... being found unable to handle your own funds (by VA or SSI; federal agencies doling out money) is not a classical competency hearing at all.  Yes, some of the same evidence may (or may not) be heard.  

But the threshold for for competence to handle funds is far lower than a State mental incompetence determination, where one might be subsequently involuntarily committed to a mental institution.  All that competence to handle funds determinations are is a decision to pay all money benefits of a disability recipient to a payee on his behalf..... that is the only issue being decided in those determinations.  Plenty of guys with VA have had their benefits paid to family or a fiduciary who are not rated for any mental disability at all.  They are just bad with money (and almost always old).

Now there are cases where there has already been a State competency hearing that HAS found the subject mentally incompetent (and that alone would be sufficient to extinguish 2d amendment rights under Fed law).... and then VA or SSI just rely on that to find a need to pay his benefits to a family member or other fiduciary.  But most of the time, there has not been a prior State competency hearing, and the only issue being decided is if the subject is reliable with his own money.  

Competence to handle funds determinations may only rest on factors entirely unrelated to issues of danger to self or others, inability to understand right from wrong.  It may be based entirely on a person being found to be an unrepentant spendthrift, and nothing more (they are often allowed for this very reason).  Right to possession or use of firearms is not noticed up as an issue to be decided, is never (or extremely rarely) discussed at all, and no mental health professional may even have any input in such a determination.  The most usual evidence heard is family members complaining about how the old guy blows all his benefit checks without helping them with the expenses of taking care of him.  If he does it enough, VA or SSi willdecide to pay it to his family so they get a partial restitution of their out of pocket expenses.  Here is where stripping 2d amendment rights is simply unconstitutional.

A State court competency hearing is a judicial (judge) proceeding and determination with full due process rights (though not to a jury) to be represented by counsel, to cross examine your accusers, etc.  A VA or SSI decision on competence to manage funds is an administrative determination not by a judge, but by a GS lay-employee, most often made on paperwork alone.  With VA, the vet can request a hearing (I don't know about SSI) but hearings are the exception, not the rule.  Only on appeal could a vet get a review by an Administrative Law Judge.

I want to be clear.  I am not advocating that mentally imbalanced people should not lose their firearm rights (they should, after an individual judicial hearing on competence).  I am advocating that VA and SSI recipients not have their firearm rights automatically stripped just because some Federal lay-employee decided they can't be trusted with their cash benefits (and nothing more).

A consistently demonstrated financial irresponsibility does not (necessarily) equal insanity or serious mental disability.... or a clear and present danger to self or others either.  

I know some husbands who think their wives are nutty this way, but she can't have her 2d amendment rights removed just because she spends the checkbook dry all the time.