GOA Urges President Trump to End the Veteran Disarmament Rule

Dear John,

And two Members of Congress released a letter urging President Trump to support GOA’s petition.

The VA is required by law to respond to the petition within 60 calendar days.

But the decision to take action ultimately rests with President Trump—and so we need you to take action immediately.

Here’s the situation. Since the Clinton administration, Veterans have been disproportionately “adjudicated” as mental defectives by the federal government.

President Trump has been searching for ways to empower Veterans and end the national tragedy of Veteran suicide.

And GOA agrees with this laudable goal. 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 any efforts that seek to reduce Veteran suicide must respect the right to keep and bear arms, especially because our Veterans have taken up arms to defend this country.

So, the president should take this opportunity to eliminate one of the biggest barriers to Veterans seeking life-saving mental health treatment—the threat of being disarmed!

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ actions are in direct violation of the VA’s own interpretation of U.S. Code.

The VA adjudicates Veterans who cannot manage their checkbooks as “mentally incompetent” and reports them to the NICS database. And there is no justification for it in the law!

However, a non-Veteran who seeks a fiduciary’s help is not reported to NICS.

Veterans should not be held to this lower, arbitrary, and unconstitutional standard.

You might remember when the Obama-Biden Administration tried to disarm Social Security beneficiaries in a similar manner.

Thankfully, with your help, we were able to stop Barack Obama and Joe Biden before their final rule went into effect with an act of Congress.

Even now, Speaker Pelosi is blocking the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act from moving forward in the House of Representatives.

There is room for the President to take executive action and reconcile VA policy with the federal law.

But President Trump needs your support and encouragement to take this long-overdue executive action.

Please, contact the White House and tell President Trump to take necessary action to both respect the right of Veterans to keep and bear arms and eliminate Veteran suicide.

In liberty,

Aidan Johnston
Director of Federal Affairs
Gun Owners of America

P.S. Please urge President Trump to end the Veteran disarmament rule.  And to renew your GOA membership or to join for the first time, please click here.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON FORWARDING:

If you forward this email to others, it is strongly recommended that you first remove the ‘unsubscribe’ link at to the bottom of this message. Otherwise, it is possible for a secondary recipient to inadvertently unsubscribe you from the GOA alert system.