Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. BOST. Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 4366.
My amendment would prevent any funds under the act from being used to continue a VA current practice of sending a veteran's name to the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or the NICS list.
According to the VA rules, if a veteran or beneficiary is appointed a fiduciary to help manage their VA benefits, their name is automatically sent to the NICS list. VA sends the veteran's name without finding that veteran a danger to themselves or others, and this is not done in a court of law, not done by a judge, not done by any person with legal authority. It is only done by a VA bureaucrat.
A Federal employee currently has the right to take away a constitutional right of our veterans. The same veterans who protected our constitutional rights are now losing theirs because they need a bit of help managing their finances.
I have said this once, and I will say it again: Veterans should not be treated any differently from any other American citizen.
The mission of the VA is to care for those who have served. To me, it seems this practice is the opposite of caring for our veterans.
Veterans have told me that this practice is a barrier for them to seek healthcare. They are so afraid of losing their constitutional rights that they will not go to the VA for their healthcare or their benefits.
There were just under 15,000 individuals reported to NICS last fiscal year from the VA. This fiscal year, over 8,000 veterans have already been reported to the NICS so far. This practice must stop.
I am proud to have introduced my amendment that would prohibit the unlawful loss of a constitutional right of our veterans.
Madam Chair, I include in the Record letters of support for my amendment from The American Legion, Gun Owners of America, National Rifle Association, National Defense Committee, Vets 4 Vet Leadership, Veteran Warriors, and Catholic War Veterans. The American Legion, July 20, 2023. Hon. Mike Bost, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Representative Bost: On behalf of the more than 1.6 million members of The American Legion, I am pleased to express support for amendment to H.R. 4366, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. It is ironic that veterans, a community in which every member swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, requires advocacy to maintain their constitutional right to bear arms. The American Legion believes that each veteran, regardless of disability, has the lawful right to possess firearms, unless deemed unfit by a judicial authority with the full benefit of due process. Any constitutional right should be protected with this same expectation of scrutiny.
The proposed amendment would prohibit the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from sending information on veterans who are assisted by a fiduciary to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), without a judicial ruling that they are a danger to themselves or others. As such, this amendment would prevent veterans from losing their Second Amendment right to purchase or own a firearm because they receive help managing their VA benefits.
Through American Legion Resolution No. 118: Amend Title 38, United States Code, to Clarify the Treatment of a Veteran as Adjudicated Mentally Incompetent for Certain Purposes, The American Legion urges Congress to pass legislation which would prohibit VA ``from transmitting in any form, findings about a veteran's mental status or ability to handle his or her own funds, to other agencies without the order or finding of a judge, magistrate, or other judicial authority of competent jurisdiction.'' The American Legion supports the proposed amendment. The American Legion sincerely appreciates your leadership on this issue and looks forward to working with you to secure the passage of this critical amendment. For God & Country, Vincent J. ``Jim'' Troiola, National Commander. ____ Gun Owners of America, July 18, 2023. Hon. Mike Bost, Chairman, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Bost: Gun Owners of America is thankful to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs for its focus on the lost gun rights of a quarter of a million veterans with its legislative hearing on H.R. 705, the Veterans' 2nd Amendment Protection Act.
GOA exists to protect the constitutionally recognized right to keep and bear arms of all Americans. Because our veterans have taken up arms to defend this country, we strongly believe that the Department of Veterans Affairs must respect that right. Yet, since the Clinton Administration and the invention of the NICS background check system, the VA has used its ``fiduciary rule'' to disarm veterans as if they had been ``adjudicated as a mental defective'' by a court and were now prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law.
Veterans who have risked life and limb and now suffer from the psychological consequences related to their service should receive the best mental health care our nation has to offer. But VA gun control measures, such as this ``fiduciary rule'' to arbitrarily report veterans to the NICS database, pose major barriers to care for gun owning veterans who may need life-saving mental health treatment.
Sadly, veterans are disproportionately ``adjudicated'' as mental defectives by the federal government. As of 3 January 2023, 97.8 percent of active 18 U.S.C. Sec. 9221(g)(4) records in the NICS system submitted by the federal government are veterans. Of the 266,804 records submitted to NICS by federal agencies pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(g)(4), 261,168 records were submitted by the VA.
The procedure of turning a veteran who cannot manage his or her checkbook into a prohibited person begins when a VA bureaucrat requires a fiduciary to administer benefit payments. The VA only notifies the veteran once at the initiation of the fiduciary appointment process. If the VA does not receive a response within 60 days of the issuance of this notification, the VA makes a determination of competency based only on the evidence of record and the veteran's record is submitted to the NICS database. Thus, a veteran may lose the legal right to possess or obtain firearms without committing any crime, without the constitutional due process necessary for the deprivation of a right, and sometimes without the veteran's full knowledge or consent,
It is essential that Congress immediately pass the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act to prohibit the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from disarming any more veterans with its unconstitutional ``fiduciary rule'' process. Congress must also restore the Second Amendment rights of the veterans currently prohibited from possessing firearms because the VA has submitted their name to the FBI's background check system.
GOA fully endorses Chairman Bost's Amendment to H.R. 4366-- to include the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act to the Military, Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024.
In Liberty, Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs. ____ National Rifle Association of America, Washington, DC, July 19, 2023.
Dear Chairman Bost: The National Rifle Association (NRA) applauds your amendment to H.R. 4366, to prevent the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from stripping veterans' Second Amendment rights without due process.
For decades, VA has been using an entitlement program as a pretext to revoke a fundamental constitutional right from those it vows to serve. Under the current scheme, appointment of a fiduciary--a bureaucratic decision assessing a beneficiary's ability to handle personal finances--is treated as an ``adjudication'' of ``mental defectiveness.'' This results in the reporting of these veterans to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System as disqualified from firearm ownership and acquisition, even though that finding does not involve a judge or a hearing to establish whether the individuals are dangerous to themselves or others.
No government bureaucrat should have the unilateral and arbitrary power to strip any American of their gun rights. Therefore, on behalf of millions of NRA members across the country--many of whom have served this great nation in uniform--the NRA fully supports this amendment as well as your companion legislation, H.R. 705, the Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act. Sincerely, Randy Kozuch, Executive Director, NRA-ILA. ____ July 26, 2023. Hon. Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House. Hon. Steve Scalise, Majority Leader of the House. Hon. Jim McGovern, Ranking Member, House Committee on Rules. Hon. Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader of the House. Hon. Tom Cole, Chair, House Committee on Rules.
Dear Speaker McCarthy, Leaders Jeffries and Scalise, Chair Cole, and Representative McGovern: We, the undersigned veteran and military serving organizations, endorse the inclusion in the House Committee on Rules' reported Rule on H.R. 4366, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024, of the Rules Committee Amendment 23, Version 2--sponsored by Representative Bost of Illinois--to prohibit ``the VA from using funds to submit a beneficiary's name to the NICS list based on VA's appointment of a fiduciary.'' We also endorse the amendment's adoption by the House into the final House- passed version of the bill.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA's) Fiduciary program is a testament to the threat the unchecked regulatory powers of the Executive Branch can pose to the inalienable rights of the People, in this case, to the rights of disabled veterans to due process under the law, and to keep and bear arms. From the Fiduciary program's placing the burden of proof on the veteran to prove they are competent (and not on the VA to prove the veteran is incompetent), to the lack of judicial oversight to the process (as is provided in similar incompetency determinations by the Social Security Administration), to the then Orwellian process by which the VA tattles to the Department of Justice that the veteran has problems balancing their checkbook, and therefore now somehow qualifies as a ``mental defective'' under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and loses their right to keep and bear arms, all without any judicial action, this program is rife with threats to the liberty and property of the very men and women who sacrificed their physical well being in the defense of this country.
Furthermore, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine found 55 percent of those Iraq and Afghanistan veterans needing mental health services did not seek VA care. The National Academies further stated a significant reason these veterans are not seeking these mental health care services is because of the fear they will lose their firearms, or other legal or administrative actions will be taken against them for seeking mental health care such as loss of security clearance, loss of child custody, and with 35 percent of those interviewed by the National Academy saying ``the potential of having their personal firearms taken away as an obstacle to use VA mental health services.'' And given the rate of increase in veteran suicides over the last 20 years is almost 240 percent higher for those veterans not in the VA's mental health care programs than those in it, such disincentives to seek VA mental health care, such as the Fiduciary Rule, appear to be increasing veteran suicide, not decreasing it.
While we believe the entire VA Fiduciary program must be fundamentally reformed to address the significant civil and legal right abuses the Fiduciary program itself represents for America's veterans, given the legislative process that will require, we believe the Fiscal Year 2024 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act should contain this prohibition on any funds being expended by the VA to involuntarily place any veteran into the Fiduciary program. Very Respectfully, National Defense Committee. Vets 4 Vet Leadership. Veteran Warriors. Catholic War Veterans.
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Mr. BOST. Madam Chair, I thank Representatives Rosendale, Hudson, DesJarlais, Self, Cammack, Higgins, Ogles, Miller, Boebert, Van Orden, and Kiggans for joining me on this amendment.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. BOST. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I am glad that was brought up, the claim that the bureaucrats do not do this. It is only the bureaucrats that recommend to the NICS list, and then the Department of Justice does this. They take away a right of a veteran where any other citizen in this United States would have to go before a court of law where they would be found to be a danger to themselves or others.
Yet, our VA, under the interpretation that they have made of an existing law, has decided that they will have a bureaucrat, without due process, take away the rights of our veterans. It is as simple as that.
When I came here to this House, I found this out. As a veteran, I was appalled. What bothers me more than anything is the number of veterans across the central part of this United States who choose not to seek VA help for the fear that they would lose that Second Amendment right. They fought for that right and every other right under this Constitution.
This needs to be straightened out. It is not gun control. It is not any issue like that. This is a veterans rights issue.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), the distinguished ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
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Mr. BOST. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I will answer two quick questions.
The fact is that, no, the VA employee does not take the Second Amendment right and possess the guns. The Department of Justice does. They give the name to the Department of Justice.
Two, when the statement was made that I have a bill to try to deal with this, the ranking member was totally correct. I do because I am going to do everything I can to make sure that the rights of our veterans are not taken away.
It is time for us to stand up for our veterans and protect the constitutional rights that they fought to protect. No veteran should lose their Second Amendment right without due process of law.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
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