Maybe I failed to mention that my husband is a disabled veteran. He is incapable of handling his own finances. He is incompetent. I am his caregiver.
Based on that limited information, you have advocated putting him under investigation for the purpose of depriving him of his 2nd Amendment rights. Not because there is any probable cause, or likelihood that he cannot or should not handle a firearm, but because he’s a military veteran who cannot manage a household.
He cannot balance a checkbook. He cannot cook meals or do much housework. But he can handle his firearms, and do his own reloading. He knows better than to go on a shooting spree. He knows better than to violate others’ rights, even when he can. But there is no reason he should have to prove any of that, in court or a bureaucrat’s office, because he has done nothing to raise any reasonable suspicion. There is no reason to suspect that just because a veteran is disabled they are any more likely than anyone else to abuse their 2nd Amendment rights. In this country, we do not open fishing expedition type investigations against people for the purpose of taking punitive action against them if there is not a reason.
We do not investigate every civilian who checks NO to the question “Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective...?” Even if they can’t sign their name on the form for whatever reason, we don’t open an investigation. They could be blind, illiterate, or just deliberately difficult, and we do not open an investigation into their mental/emotional/medical state with the goal of revoking their right to purchase the firearm. And there’s no reason we should, unless they display some evidence worthy of an investigation. The 4th Amendment prohibits such abuse.
As a fellow veteran, I salute your husband and thank him for his service, sincerely.
Based on that limited information, you have advocated putting him under investigation for the purpose of depriving him of his 2nd Amendment rights.
This is the miscommunication between us. I advocate no such thing. I have explained the current VA rationale for what it does, and stated that I do not believe that currently they are waging a campaign to disarm veterans.
I believe that there are some veterans (and non-veterans) who are too mentally incompetent to possess firearms, namely those people who are devoid of rational thought and literally too incompetent to care for themselves. This does not include your husband as you have described. I believe that the current system, where VA proposes, then determines (based on its own proposal) to restrict firearm rights encourages VA to propose restrictions on people like your husband who should not be restricted. What has VA got to lose? They simply propose to take his guns, then have a "hearing", then take them.
By moving the determination to the courts, VA must assemble its evidence FIRST, rather than having a hearing requiring your husband to prove his evidence to the contrary.
I am not in any way actively endorsing any power to the VA, or against veterans. Maybe I have failed to explain this properly based on some of the responses I've gotten. I simply mean to say that there are, in our society, people who are so mentally impaired that they must be disarmed for their own safety, and that that determination should always be made by a court, not a bureaucrat.
My comments about what VA does now are simply explanatory.