NDC Testifies in Support of Vets Gun Rights before House Vet Affairs Committee
On July 18, 2023, Executive Director of NDC Captain Bob Carey, U.S. Navy (Ret.) gave a testimony in front of Chairman Bost (R-IL-12th), Representative Takano (D-CA-39th), and the rest of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
Retired Navy Capt. Bob Carey used this opportunity to highlight the fact that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has indiscriminately abrogated veterans’ inalienable rights for decades, not only the right to keep and possess arms (as is supposed to be protected from such federal government overreach by the Second Amendment), but those veterans’ due process rights which are similarly supposed to be protected from such government overreach by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
He shared with the Committee members that NDC wholeheartedly endorses The Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act (H.R. 705), which was introduced this year by Chairman Bost. The Retired Navy Captain stated, “I hope our testimony has shown today, VA’s reporting to the Department of Justice of those veterans it places in the Fiduciary program to the NICS database does not comport with the legal requirements of the gun control provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, is a gross overreach of the VA’s Executive Branch authority”.
NDC additionally, recommends the Fiscal Year 2024 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act contain a prohibition on any funds being expended by the VA to involuntarily place any veteran into the Fiduciary program. As, no veteran should lose control over the management of their VA benefits, which federal case law has repeatedly determined to be the equivalent of the veteran’s “property”, without proper due process protections for the veteran. And the VA’s current Fiduciary adjudication process completely fails to meet that standard.
His testimony can be found here.
