Why is the Federal Government
Disarming Veterans?
Veterans around the country are receiving letters from the federal
government informing them that because of alleged physical or mental disability
their financial decisions will be made by a government-appointed “fiduciary”
and they will be forbidden from “purchasing, possessing, receiving or
transporting a firearm or ammunition.”
This is not a warning of something that might happen;
these letters are being sent out everyday by the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) as part of its Fiduciary Program.
Citing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, VA is warning veterans
labeled as incompetent that they will be “fined and/or imprisoned” if they are
found in possession of a gun or ammunition.
The final decision on whether the veteran should be disarmed and prevented
from ever owning a gun or ammunition will include an assessment of the
following:
• The willingness to serve and abide by all agreements
• An interview with a VA representative
• Credit report review
• An inquiry into the criminal background, and
• Interviews with character witnesses
For years now, the Obama administration has followed a policy of targeting
vets, taking away their guns, imprisoning them, and labeling them as “right
wing extremists” and potential threats to national security.
Consider this quote from a Department of Homeland Security report entitled “
Rightwing
Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in
Radicalization and Recruitment”:
The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of
military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their
communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone
wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.
Veterans are being asked to serve tour after tour in unconstitutional
foreign conflicts with no identified enemy, then returning home and having
their most basic right denied by the very government that asked them to
sacrifice their lives.
There was a story last year about a police raid on the house of an Army
veteran and Purple Heart recipient in Ohio.
The county sheriff executed a search warrant and seized the man’s guns for the
“safety of the defendant and the general public.”
Although unnamed, the government ruled the man was mentally incompetent to
handle his own affairs or to own a weapon.
Readers also may remember the recent shocking case of Brandon Raub.
The
New American’s Jack Kenny reported on the story last August.
Kenny wrote that Raub was:
held involuntarily as a psychiatric patient at the Salem Veterans Affairs
hospital in Virginia over
anti-government postings on his Facebook page. Raub, a Marine combat
veteran who served in both Iraq
and Afghanistan,
was visited by FBI and Secret Service agents at his North
Chesterfield home on August 16, then taken by police under an
emergency custody order to John Randolph
Medical Center
in Hopewell. He was transferred to
the veterans hospital on August 20. A medical assessment of his condition at
John Randolph described him as paranoid and delusional, the Richmond
Times-Dispatch
reported. But after an hour-long hearing in Hopewell
Circuit Court August 23, Judge W. Allan Sharrett dismissed an involuntary
commitment petition as invalid.
"The petition is so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not
be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy," said the
release order signed by Sharrett, vacating the order of Special Justice Walter
Douglas Stokes to detain Raub for 30 days. Stokes, who presides over commitment
hearings, also ordered Raub's transfer to the VA hospital in Salem,
about 180 miles from his home. Judge Sharrett said he was shocked to find the
commitment order contained no grounds for holding Raub.
The irrefutable fact is that, had the Rutherford Institute not stepped in
and defended Raub, the young man would likely still be unconscionably held in a
government mental hospital at the mercy of Obama administration bureaucrats.
Apart from the government’s reprehensible quest to disarm veterans, brand
them as mentally ill, and treat them as terrorists, there is the fact that all
this is being done in violation of the veterans’ right to due process protected
by the Fifth Amendment.
The
Fifth
Amendment to the Constitution provides that no person shall be “
deprived
of life, liberty, or property, without
due
process of law.”
As in the case of so many other constitutional impediments to its statist
goals, the president and his subordinates are ignoring the Fifth Amendment and
arresting, disarming, and imprisoning veterans without due process.
Of course, the VA assures veterans subject to disarmament that if they file
a timely objection to the decision, a VA board will consider their appeal. This
is hardly the rigorous legal process required before the government can
constitutionally deprive citizens — or any person — of their most basic
constitutional rights.
Why is the president targeting veterans?
Michael Connelly proposes the following possible explanation:
The reality is that Obama will not get all of the gun control measures he
wants through Congress, and they wouldn’t be enough for him anyway. He wants a
totally disarmed America
so there will be no resistance to his plans to rob us of our nation. That means
we have to ask who will be next. If you are receiving a Social Security check
will you get one of these letters? Will the government declare that you are
incompetent because of your age and therefore banned from firearm ownership. It
certainly fits in with the philosophy and plans of the Obama administration. It
is also certain that our military veterans don’t deserve this and neither do
any other Americans.
Or, as Michael Snyder
wrote at the American Dream, “The federal government wants
lots of warm bodies to throw into battle, but when those bodies get broken the
government is not there to pick up the pieces.”
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American
and
travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA,
and the surveillance state. He can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com.
