GunsHouse ends rule preventing mentally ill people from buying guns

Published 3 February 2017

The House voted 235-180 to allow mentally ill people to buy and own guns. Lawmakers overturned a regulation which went into effect last year – and which affected about 75,000 people – which required the Social Security Administration to relay names of Social Security recipients diagnosed with mental health conditions, such as extreme anxiety and schizophrenia, and who are considered incapable of managing their own affairs. The names of these individuals were added to a database of citizens who are ineligible to purchase a firearm.

The GOP-controlled House on Thursday has struck down an Obama administration rule aiming to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people. 

CNN reports that in a 235-180 vote, lawmakers overturned a regulation which went into effect last year – and which affected about 75,000 people – which required the Social Security Administration to relay names of Social Security recipients diagnosed with mental health conditions, such as extreme anxiety and schizophrenia, and who are considered incapable of managing their own affairs. The names of these individuals were added to a database of citizens who are ineligible to purchase a firearm.

Republicans and gun-rights activists have argued that the rule stigmatizes those with mental health issues and unfairly strips them of their Second Amendment rights.

“The Obama administration’s rule is discriminatory and deprives law-abiding Americans of their constitutional rights,” House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a statement, echoing a similar statement from Chris Cox, the National Rifle Association’s top lobbyist.

Those supporting “The Social Security Administration not only overstepped its mission with this regulation, it discriminated against certain Americans with disabilities who receive Social Security benefits. The agency should be focused on serving all of its beneficiaries, not picking and choosing whose Second Amendment rights to deny,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee.the rule argue that all it did was prevent a small group of people with severe mental illnesses from potentially causing harm to themselves and others.

“Plain and simple, today’s move downgrades a system built to enforce existing laws that keep guns out of hands that shouldn’t have them,” Erika Soto Lamb, the chief communications officer for Everytown for Gun Safety, told the Independent.

“Our background check system is only as good as the records it contains and this vote re-opened the door for people prohibited from firearm ownership to illegally pass checks, buy and possess guns. Our public safety has been put at risk because of today’s gun lobby-backed manoeuvre to advance their agenda of more guns for anyone, no questions asked.”