While the media mostly fawned over President Obama’s announcement of executive orders on gun control, one terrifying tidbit was generally ignored: The plan to strip tens of thousands of retirees of their Second Amendment rights is still on track. To recap, the Obama administration plans to add the names of 75,000 Social Security beneficiaries per year to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) administrated by the FBI, effectively prohibiting them from owning firearms.
The individuals reported to NICS will be those deemed incompetent to own a gun—yet the primary instrument for determining who ends up on such a list will be the record that someone has designated a representative payee to handle their benefits. Many seniors use this method because of convenience, not incompetence; they certainly never meant to sign away their constitutional right to bear arms in the process.
