New Bill Protects 2nd Amendment Right of Seniors

In a July issue of the L.A. Times, it was reported that the Social Security Administration would begin sharing information with the National Instant Background Check System, worrying many who thought this was Obama’s latest ploy to skirt the Second Amendment. While the controversy spurred by this proposition may have been overstated, no one can blame gun-rights supporters for exploring the worst case scenarios.

After all, this is an administration that has made no secret of its distaste for the Second Amendment. Obama never misses a chance to blame guns for the ills of the nation, and he is backed by a legion of liberals who believe likewise. Worse yet, the president is still smarting over what he calls his greatest failure – his inability to pass gun control legislation in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. Considering how fast and loose Obama plays with federal law, a scheme to disarm seniors would seem right up his alley.

Not willing to take any chances, Rep. Sam Houston (R., Texas) has introduced a bill called the Social Security Beneficiary Second Amendment Rights Protection Act. If passed, the bill would put an end to what Republicans see as a massive federal overreach.

“It’s no secret President Obama isn’t a fan of our Second Amendment,” Johnson told the Washington Free Beacon. “Because he failed to push his gun control agenda through Congress, his administration is now seeking to deny millions of law-abiding Americans their right to bear arms by going through Social Security. Old age or a disability does not make someone a threat to society.”

Reviewing the controversy this summer, fact-checking resource Politifact said that the SSA’s plan would affect only those recipients who have been declared mentally incompetent. They gave space to Gary Kleck, a criminology professor at Florida State University, to explain the deal: “There is nothing in the policy that would change the definition of who may possess a gun, nor anything that extends the federal government’s authority to take guns away from those who already have them.”

So does that make Johnson’s bill irrelevant?

Not quite.

Even if it appears harmless on the surface, the Social Security plot is meant to expand federal background checks and weaken every American’s right to due process. Are the standards that govern an individual’s mental competency the same for both gun ownership and the handling of one’s financial affairs? Do we trust this mingling of bureaucracies to look out for the Second Amendment rights of the American people? Even if you answered yes to both of those, do you not think this is a step toward universal background checks? Toward a federal registry? Under an anti-gun president like Obama, we should fight back hard against any federal gun control law, no matter how harmless it appears on the surface.

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t just turn on and off like a lightswitch, going dark when your agenda moves you in a particular direction. Its power lies in its unchanging, steady guidance, handed down generation to generation. We owe it to its writers, our forefathers, ourselves, and our children to preserve that power whenever possible.

And when you have a party like the Democrats, you’d better believe that’s a full-time job.