The Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act (H.R. 1181) would prohibit a Veterans Affairs Department determination that an individual is mentally incompetent from being used as a basis for that individual’s inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which would thereby prevent the individual from purchasing a gun. Under the measure, an individual could not be considered to be mentally defective without a judicial authority’s finding that the individual poses a danger to himself or herself or others.
The House passed H.R. 1181 on March 16, 2017 by a vote of 240 to 175 (Roll Call 169). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the Veterans Affairs Department determination referenced above is a clear violation of the Second Amendment, which states that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
