![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/money.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Look to hear that phrase more in the near future:<\/p>\n
The Senate has approved a measure that would ease some veterans’ access to guns, brushing aside objections from most Democrats and the Department of Veterans Affairs that doing so could hinder suicide prevention efforts.<\/p>\n
The legislation would prohibit the VA from reporting veterans who are found incapable of managing their own finances to the FBI’s national background check database without first getting a judge’s consent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, here’s the deal: If a vet asks for help with his finances, even balancing his checkbook, VA reports him to NCIC as ‘mentally incompetent’ so he is unable to purchase a firearm.<\/p>\n
I remember some folks who were incompetent with money while I was in – one buck sergeant always seemed to have the newest stereo, because he’d have to hock it periodically to pay monthly bills but couldn’t live without his tunes and would have to buy another stereo at the PX the next month, as one example. Was he mentally incompetent? Nope, just foolish. But, they have a new hook to hang this one on:<\/p>\n
The VA reports the names of veterans who are deemed mentally incompetent to a national criminal background check database used during the purchase of firearms, but the practice has drawn criticism from gun rights advocates in Congress. The vote came hours before at least 18 people were killed in a mass shooting in Maine, where authorities have identified an Army reservist as a person of interest.<\/p>\n
The VA, though, has firmly opposed the bill, pointing to statistics that show a correlation between suicidal ideation and financial issues, and that show suicide attempts involving firearms are more lethal than other methods.<\/p>\n
The program at issue “protects some of our most vulnerable veterans, and we do believe that taking firearms away — not us, but the process — does protect our veterans,” Ron Burke, the VA’s deputy under secretary for policy and oversight, testified at a House hearing earlier this year. “Preventing veterans suicide is the No. 1 clinical focus for VA, and we believe that the process works.”\u00a0\u00a0 Military.com<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
See how it gets conflated? Suddenly the whacked out idiot who shot up Maine is the poster boy for needing a fiduciary to help you with money. Or that if you can’t balance your checkbook that you probably want to kill yourself with a gun. Are there folks needing money help, and can they be folks with deep issues? Yes, but the reverse is not cause-and-effect true.\u00a0 Yet another case where VA and your doctors need to stay in their own lanes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"