VA Sending Veterans’ Mental Health Information to FBI to Restrict Gun Ownership

By Woody published on April 29, 2015 in News

Patrick Howley of the Daily Caller has written that mental health information collected by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is being transferred to the FBI so patients can be added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) list of individuals restricted from owning or possessing guns.

According to Howley’s Daily Caller article, the VA said in a responding statement:

“The Department of Veterans Affairs’ policy to inform veterans of their rights regarding the Brady Act has not changed. As has been policy for multiple administrations, VA acts in accordance with federal law and works with the Department of Justice to properly maintain the NICS database. VA notifies any veteran who may be deemed by VA to be mentally incapable of managing his or her own funds of the opportunity to contest this determination and also to seek relief from the reporting requirements under the Brady Act, as required by law.”

In response to the Daily Caller article, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity issued a statement, asking:

Where is the recognition that the rights at issue here are explicitly protected in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution? It seems the VA values a vague reference to “policy for multiple administrations” above the Constitution.

What of the long-respected American legal protection of doctor-patient confidentiality?

How can the VA claim that its actions are justified because it informs patients of the privacy-violating, rights-restricting policy it uses against patients? Patients may logically choose to waive confidentiality to some degree in some instances, but this seems far from a fair waiver situation. It looks more like duress.

Where is the due process? You do not meet due process by summarily depriving someone of the ability to exercise his rights without even a court adjudication and then “generously” allowing him to go through a long, confusing, and expensive process of attempting to prove the deprivation was not justified.

You can read here, here, and here more reports by the Ron Paul Institute regarding the ongoing expansion of the scope of mental-health databases and of the databases’ use by the U.S. and state governments to prevent people from exercising gun rights.

Are you a veteran, or know one, who has run afoul of this VA policy? Tell us how it resolved, if so. Do you think this VA policy breaches doctor-patient confidentiality, or is the agency compelled by law to report veterans to the NICS system?

Blue Water Sailors

Positive news for a change...

If your ship entered a Vietnamese bay, harbor or port and anchored, you may be eligible now thanks to the BWN-friendly U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals.  Shipmate Bob Gray has won a case as described below.
Here is the great news from our good friends at FRA:

Veterans Appeals Court Rules in Favor of “Blue Water” Claim
The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has ruled that Navy veterans who served aboard ships in the harbors of Vietnam more than 40 years ago should not be arbitrarily excluded from Agent Orange claims—a significant step forward for these veterans.

Former Navy seaman Robert Gray has been denied multiple disability claims by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) based on the fact that he was aboard a ship—not on land—during the Vietnam War, when the herbicide Agent Orange was liberally sprayed by American forces to remove foliage and eliminate enemy cover. The chemical was later found to cause a myraid of health problems for service members who were exposed, but the federal government has denied disability claims to U.S. Navy sailors under the argument that the seamen were offshore and were not directly exposed.

FRA-supported proposals (HR 969/S. 681), introduced in both the House and Senate, which are pending in Congress, would give recognition to Navy personnel exposure to Agent Orange through ships’ water systems. Runoff containing the herbicide flowed into Da Nang harbor and other offshore waterways, infiltrating water systems on naval vessels. Military Veterans Advocacy (MVA), a veteran’s rights organization based in Louisiana, has long sought recognition for these conditions and filed an amicus brief in this case. “This is an important step forward in restoring the benefits to those veterans who served offshore,” said retired Navy Commander John B. Wells, executive director of MVA. “When the VA stripped benefits from 174,000 Navy veterans, they left these veterans without health care and their families destitute. The VA now has a chance to restore the presumption of exposure to veterans who served aboard ships anchored in Da Nang and other harbors of Vietnam.”

The VA will probably appeal this decision, and Congress has not yet acted on Agent Orange/Blue Water legislation. FRA staff recently met with House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC) staff to discuss the status of Agent Orange legislation (H.R. 969) and to request a HVAC hearing on this issue.

FRA has worked closely with MVA in the legislative arena, and members are urged to use the FRA Action Center (action.fra.org/action-center) to ask their legislators to support Agent Orange/Blue Water Navy proposals (H.R. 969/S. 681).