Last week, President Trump signed a resolution that kills an Obama-era rule preventing some Social Security recipients from buying guns.
House Joint Resolution 40 stopped the Obama directive to the Social Security Administration to disclose information about certain people with mental illnesses to the national gun background check system. The order was made last December in Obama’s final weeks in office. See our previous reporting on it here, here, here, and here.
“By signing this resolution into law, President Trump took another important step toward reversing years of harmful executive overreach under the Obama Administration,” House Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said in a statement. “[Social Security] should not be the arbiters of constitutional rights; it should be fulfilling its mission to serve all beneficiaries.”
The Obama order was directed toward Social Security recipients on full disability who needed help managing their benefits because of their mental conditions.
“As I’ve said before, just because someone has a disability does not mean they’re a threat to society, and needing help to manage your benefits does not make you dangerous,” Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) said in the joint statement with Brady.
The American Civil Liberties Union sided with national gun-owners groups to denounce the rule, along with the National Council on Disability (NCD), Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Rights Task Force, National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery (NCMHR), and the Bazelon Center. While the gun groups were concerned about 2nd Amendment rights, the ACLU complained that the rule reinforced stereotypes that people with mental illnesses are violent, CNN reported.
“Social Security needs to focus on its job—making sure Americans receive the benefits they’ve earned—and the action by President Trump lets them do just that,” Rep. Johnson said. — Bill Miller, Contributor, Texas & U.S. Law Shield blog
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