CNSNews.com) – Speaking on the House floor on Wednesday, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) warned that President Barack Obama is trying to “deny millions of law-abiding Americans” the right to bear arms “by going through Social Security.”
“Mr. Speaker, President Obama is at it again. He’s now seeking to deny millions of law-abiding Americans their Second Amendment right to bear arms by going through Social Security, and why is that? Because he couldn’t get gun control through the Congress. The American people wouldn’t stand for it,” said Johnson.
“Mr. Speaker, old age or disability does not make someone a threat to society. These folks should be able to defend themselves just like everyone else,” Johnson said.
According to the LA Times, Obama is pushing to extend gun background checks to include “anyone who has been declared incompetent to manage pension or disability payments and assigned a fiduciary.”
“The push is intended to bring the Social Security Administration in line with laws regulating who gets reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, which is used to prevent gun sales to felons, drug addicts, immigrants in the country illegally and others,” the LA Times reported.
“As chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, I will do everything in my power to stop this gun grab. Yesterday, I ordered the commissioner of Social Security to stand down and abandon any such plan. Mark my words: Americans’ Second Amendment rights must and will be protected,” Johnson pledged.
In a letter to Social Security Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin, Johnson wrote, “The representative payee system is vital for beneficiaries who need assistance managing their own finances. Millions of responsible seniors and people with disabilities rely on a representative payee. Simply using this system does not mean beneficiaries are a risk to themselves or others.
“Providing information on individuals who have a representative payee to the NCIS is a broad overreach of authority and violates beneficiaries’ constitutional rights. This police runs counter to the aims of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – the 25th anniversary of which we will celebrate this week – and would stigmatize seniors and people with disabilities and isolate theme from society at large,” Johnson wrote.
The National Council on Disability wrote to Vice President Joe Biden on Jan. 11, 2013 expressing its opposition to such a policy, Johnson noted.
The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) applauded Johnson’s efforts to stop Obama’s “gun grab.”
"If left to their own devices, President Obama’s Social Security Administration would be free to implement the largest gun grab in American history,” NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox said. “The NRA appreciates Chairman Johnson’s swift action to put a halt to this outrageous scheme that would deny millions of Americans a fundamental constitutional right because they need or want help managing their finances."
"The Obama administration will stop at nothing to strip as many people as possible of their Second Amendment rights,” Cox said. “The NRA will employ all means available to prevent the implementation of such a widespread injustice.”
focuses on questionable benefits rulings made by administrative law judges, including one in Oklahoma who was found to have awarded more than $1.6 billion in lifetime benefits in just three years. Judge Howard O’Bryan, in Oklahoma City, approved roughly 90 percent of more than 5,400 cases from 2007 to 2009 -- most of them held “on-the-record” without hearings, according to the minority report.
