BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today congratulated the U.S. Senate for its 57-43 vote to block an Obama administration regulation that threatened the Second Amendment rights of tens of thousands of Social Security beneficiaries.
The Obama administration regulation required the Social Security Administration to submit the names of SS recipients with apparent “mental impairments” who had third parties manage their benefits to the federal National Instant Background Check System (NICS) to block their ability to buy firearms. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.
“This rule was more about disqualifying as many people as possible from exercising their Second Amendment Rights than it ever was about public safety,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Even the American Civil Liberties union opposed Obama’s overreaching restriction. We are delighted that the Senate voted to rescind this regulation, and we encourage gun owners to politely contact the White House and ask President Trump to sign it.”
Gottlieb noted that gun owners have been among the regulation’s harshest critics, adding, “And I’m one of them.”
“The Obama restriction was overly broad, and threatened the rights of an estimated 75,000 people,” he stated. “We couldn’t stand by and allow people with disabilities to be essentially demonized by a regulation from an anti-gun administration, so we were happy that so many gun owners made their voices heard on Capitol Hill.
“There are far better ways to deal with people who have mental disabilities than to stigmatize them by lumping their names in with criminals,” Gottlieb observed. “President Trump’s signature on this measure will be one more step toward making the Second Amendment great again.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at ccrkba.org or by email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
