Cramer: Proposed Social Security Rule Violates Second Amendment Rights

Press Release

Congressman Kevin Cramer reacted to a proposed rule published yesterday by the Social Security Administration (SSA). This rule, supported by the Obama Administration, could place approximately 75,000 Social Security disability beneficiaries a year on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which is used to prevent sales of firearms to individuals, such as felons, drug addicts and illegal immigrants.

These beneficiaries are individuals who receive Social Security disability insurance or supplemental security income (SSI) payments and also meet certain other criteria, including a determination that their mental impairment meets or medically equals the requirements for receiving benefits through a representative payee.

The SSA would use five factors to determine if certain recipients receiving disability insurance or SSI have been "adjudicated as a mental defective," making them federally prohibited from possessing firearms. Individuals entered into NICS under this proposed rule could appeal for relief from the federal prohibition on possessing a firearm, only after their name has already been listed.

"Stripping away the rights of individuals without due process would be an affront against those who have committed no crime," said Cramer. "It is inappropriate to categorically presume that individuals who need assistance managing their Social Security payments are also incapable of properly owning a firearm. Furthermore, nowhere in this rule is the individual's actual propensity to violence even a factor in the SSA determination process."

If this rule is implemented, Cramer said it could open the door to future abridgement from other agencies with similar overreaching proposals. "This rule could give government bureaucrats the power and discretion to deny law-abiding citizens their Second Amendment rights by deeming them mentally incompetent in NICS without due process," he said.

"The Second Amendment shouldn't be treated differently than every other Constitutional amendment,"said Cramer. "It should be up to an independent adjudicator or a jury of their peers to determine whether individuals are mentally competent to buy a firearm before they lose their rights."

Cramer is a co-sponsor of H.R. 3516, The Social Security Beneficiary Second Amendment Rights Protection Act. The bill prohibits the use of determinations made by the Social Security Administration from being used as an adjudication of mental defect.

The comment period for the proposed rule ends July 5.

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