According to a report by Western Journalism, the FBI and the VA are in “cahoots” with regards to taking guns away from veterans. This report comes on the heels of a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder last week. The letter was submitted by the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa. Grassley asked several questions about the VA’s questionable policy in the letter . . .
A memo from February of 2012 was first obtained by the Daily Caller and titled “MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION REGARDING THE NATIONAL INSTANT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK SYSTEM,” has been causing quite the stir.
This particular memo dictates that the VA must submit veterans health-related information to the FBI by way of encrypted compact disc and mailed quarterly. It states that the records will be used to update the NICS or National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
A separate document revealed that the VA provides a monthly list of veterans who have been rated by the VA as incapable of managing their VA benefits. A simple act of changing ones banking information could get a veteran on this list, as well as refusal to take the VA prescribed pills.
The VA information technology center in Austin, Texas sends out this information monthly by compact disc (CD) to the FBI. This CD contains the names of veterans to be added to the “watch list”, prohibiting them from passing a NICS background check and purchasing a firearm. As many as 129,440 veterans are on this list. Veteran Douglas Szklarski told the Daily Caller:
“I’ve had like nine doctors say I wasn’t incompetent and they still went after my guns,” Szklarski added. “ATF came to my house. I had to surrender them.” Szklarski noted he appealed the VA’s decision and only “just got” his guns back.
Szlarski’s story is an isolated event? Right. No one is coming for your guns. Right?
No wonder Eric with-Holder is heading for the hills.
Plus, he needs enough time before Obama leaves office to get the paperwork filed for his pardon.
Yo, where this memo originate and with whom? Who authorized it?
And who at the VA makes the decisions about our abilities or disabilities in regard to management of our benefits?
I’m going to speculate that it’s some statist A-hole blessed by the Obama administration to take guns away from vets “for their safety.” Either way, it’s a statist A-hole.
Anyone even remotely paying attention to our government should be expecting statism, gun control and overall bureaucratic neglect at this point. We’ve got a government that’s targeted Republicans with the IRS, won’t defend the border, won’t balance the budget, spies on us, and neglects vets.
Agreed. It’d be nice to know the actual legal provenance of the memo, though. As in, it’s nice to have more names to add to the lists of people, with all relevant intel, who will need to face justice when the time is right. It’s not gonna be of much value taking down the low-level costumed thugs who come at us when we need to ID and terminate the criminal scum who give them their orders.
“And who at the VA makes the decisions about our abilities or disabilities in regard to management of our benefits?”
My guess is nameless, faceless unelected bureaucrats, not even the medical staff, just worker bee unqualified pukes. This is disgusting, unacceptable, unforgivable. It needs to be thoroughly exposed during Republican debates and then again during the national campaign, phrased as “What would YOU do about this?”, understanding that the answer needs to be at least 50% of VA fired, they are proving repeatedly to be in the forefront of causing vets’ problems, not assisting them. And whoever dictated those reports to the FBI needs to o, along with everyone who received them. This manner of shit needs to be instantly recognizable as a career killer, do that while practicing your burger-flipping skills, for your next job. ANYONE should have instantly recognized this was wrong, but instead I saw it reported more than a year ago, and vehemently denied, just a misunderstanding. Only thing I hate more than a liar is a liar on my payroll.
+1
I’d be surprised if the Repubs ever even mention it.
And yet another reason I don’t use the VA. All this news keeps reinforcing that I made the right decision. Treatment of Veterans just gets worse and worse. Next they will have psych evals when you get back from a deployment so they can get you on the list before you even ETS.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help…”
If this is the hornets nest they want to kick, they better be prepared to reap what they sow.
It will not turn out well for the .gov on this one. A heavily stockpiled and tooled up citizenry has our Veterans backs, and will not go down quietly.
Come and Take Them.
This.
If it hasn’t happened by now, I doubt it ever will.
No surprise. The FBI and the VA are both Scientific Socialist organizations working for the Soviet State.
Scientific? Pa-leeese… anything but.
The great republic’s of North Korea, Iran, and Russia would like to introduce you to a concept called hiding the truth behind a great big lie.
Did they learn that from Bill and Hillary?
This issue is a litmus test for every Congresscritter.
Brilliant take guns away from the people (who are now “regular” citizens) are among the best trained in the world to use them, and probably have the most experience actually using them in combat.
I think that’s kinda the point
How many of the veterans have serious head injuries with brain damage, PTSD, suicidal ideations, or flash backs with panic attacks? The suicide rate among returning veterans is outrageous–and this is the government’s “quick fix” for the consequence of war. That said, it is patently obvious that the system is rigged against veterans, and many are railroaded into a loss of their gun rights. And it has to change. The bureaucrats are as bad as the school marms who want to suspend or expel kids for finger guns and cowboys and Indians.
The suicide rate among veterans is virtually identical to that of non vets. The rate among Iraq and Afghanistan vets is about 1% lower. I’m not sure where this myth came from (perhaps for the same reason some people think “gun violence” is epidemic – the mainstream media), but the facts don’t support it, not does my experience with my fellow vets, and I am pretty much surrounded by them all of the time.
If I can find the story again, I will post the link here.
The government is NOT your friend. Even if you’ve sacrificed for them, don’t expect them to appreciate your service. Your countrymen do, the government doesn’t.
The FBI is and has been one of the most corrupt LEO organizations. They’ll lie, and they’ll lie in court.
Note to veterans: if the military doesn’t kill you, the VA will. And if the VA doesn’t kill you, the FBI will. And if the FBI doesn’t kill you, there’s always the ATF.
The G hates and fears veterans. There’s simply no other explanation.
[Not heading to any VA building in the foreseeable future.]
“Yeah, but, . . . but, . . . I’m too old these days!
I got out in 1971, so they can’t still fear me! I’m growing weaker as the days go by! Surely they’ve forgotten about my service by now. . . .”
[/Not heading to any VA building in the foreseeable future.]
I’m a vet, but I don’t use their “services” Much too complicated! With my age and my health, I’ll be lucky to make it another 5 years. If some government agency comes for my guns. I will get as many of them before they get me. With the few years, or months?, I have left, I ain’t loosing much if they force me to take the “dirt nap”. It will be “expensive” for them!
Given my family history, I should already be loooong gone, but here I am. You deserve to beat the odds, Gunr. Keep up the good fight.
+1
I also plan to hang on as long as I can; I’m nearing 62 but attempting to stay in reasonably good health and fitness and learning new stuff daily. They’ll get a nasty fight if and when they come at me.
+2.
What conspiracy loving network broke the story? Take things with a lump of salt
Instead of waiting for them to begin trying to disarm larger and larger segments of the population incrementally, you can try to head them off at the pass (so to speak) by getting involved now…before it is too late
If you are a Veteran, active duty Military, or Police Officer; or even if you are a civilian that is looking for a way to serve your country now…..we need your help.
Please visit us at Oathkeepers.org.
Interested in signing up. I’m in Michigan, who CA I contact? I am also a Veteran with
P.T.S.D. and I’m beginning to worry. Can you help me out?
Thanks
Lonnie Harrison
Off topic… Check out the most tacticool Major in the US Army. Elcan specter DR, safariland multicam drop leg, haley D3 chest rig, upgraded PVS-14 helmet mount that your buddy clearly missed the boat on… The list goes on. Get down with your bad self Major Low Drag!
Even mechanix gloves with the trigger finger cut off.
Don’t be too hard though, it’s probably the one time that deployment they let him out of the operations office.
My understanding, from some time back, the VA refused to provide info. I may get on a search engine and look more into this. If you can trust that. I have no doubt that Austin, Tx agency’s will sell anyone out. Bunch of butt-holes to start with.
Im a younger Vet going through the VA process, ive asked doctors several times about my gun rights and so on. Gun rights of vets can only be lost if you say your so mentally “screwed up” that you cant take care of yourself or handle your own money (if your not able to handle your money due to ptsd should you have firearms? Also you can loose your guns if you make threats about your and others lives (same in the real world) these stories never tell the whole truth and exaggerate a lot. Like: specific meds can make you loose your guns, that’s only half true, you loose your guns for being violently bi-polar or skitzo, you just happen to be on a high amount of meds, the lower doses of the same meds can be used for aniexity or sleep, and you wont loose your guns over that
One of the younger vets in my group is now rated 80%, partly for TBI and tinnitus but mostly for PTSD; he was ANG and did the Desert One thing. He seems to have zero problems buying and owning firearms and going to the range all the time, despite fairly recently spending a full month in full-time residential treatment in the VA hospital psych unit up here.
And yet his story and stories of thousands of PTSD vets that CAN own guns are shelved and ignored. But 1 guy who probally shouldn’t have guns, tells half truths and embellishes the story, looses his guns and the whole internet explodes with “OMG gubment gonna git muh guns” these stories are purely to keep people fired up and scared. I like TTAG but stories like this are BS and belong on infowars with the reptilians and tin foil hats.
Me and the other guys in our group are on pretty good terms with the docs, therapists, counselors, etc. here and we’ve often discussed firearms and ownership and use of them and nobody blinks an eye. At one of the next meetings I’ll bring it up and see what they have to say and report back here accordingly. Although we live in a very pro-gun state (Vermont) there have been recent efforts by the usual lefty/prog suspects not from around here to fiddle with gun rights and people who’ve had various mental issues at one time or another. So it would be timely to bring it up.
What is infuriating is that these people come from places like urban NY, MA, CT, NJ, etc., and then are suddenly in an unholy rush to replicate those socialist paradises here and when we bitch about it they get all self-righteous and wax all indignant and high dudgeon to say they’re Vermonters now, too, and can change whatever they want.
Most of this activity is generated in the state capital and the population corridor between there and the largest city, Burlington, and the college towns. The rural folks are getting pretty sick and tired of it by now.
Hey now, Harry Reid IS a reptilian. That’s Truth.
And it’s a tossup as to who is hotter, him or Field Marshal Rodham.
Yeah, be careful with that state government thing. Take your eye off the ball and you’ll be backdoored like we were in Colorado.
I’m going to point out the really scary part of this post…
“…submit veterans health-related information to the FBI by way of encrypted compact disc and mailed quarterly.”
And no one can figure out what costs this government so much to run? They haven’t heard of FTP, and are still using snail mail? By the way, your confidential information (on an “encrypted” CD) are floating around the USPS – that’s really taking care of confidential information.
All that aside, big shocker – the federal government is scared of veterans…People who love this country and were trained to defend her. Wouldn’t you be too (if you were them)?
Plain vanilla FTP is none too secure, either. But you’d think by now that maybe they could hook up with the NSA or some other alphabet soup tech agency and find a secure method of moving data; this is one reason to have a bit less fear about how much they can monitor us out here; they’re often very scarily incompetent and stupid and lazy.
You do realize, they were probably using a less secure method before? And thus the memo?
People who haven’t recently worked for the government, or one of the big contractors, probably don’t realize just how big a deal handling “personal identifying information” properly is these days. Correction: according to the rules. There is a difference.
There aren’t any USB ports on their Windows 98 computers.
Now now, Im sure its at least Windows ME:)
This is a blanket type comment. Based on davidx’s comment. Socialist city states want the power over all. People move from infected states and bring the infection with them. One example, Arizona used to be where people went to cure/escape “consumption”, allergies, etc. Once established and growing they imported what was making them sick to start with (allergy causing plants). (Not to be confused with factual content). Look it up.
If I were an a-hole who wanted control of the country I’d be scared sh*tless of veterans. Well-trained, skilled, loyal folks who love freedom? Terrifying as f*ck. I’m contemplating starting a charity called “buy a vet a gun” so that we can make sure all of them can A) defend themselves, regardless of financial status or other complications, and B) help protect us from overreaching government goons.
One point here we should all take into consideration: Be careful who you tell, that you like or own deadly weapons!
Don’t tell you doctor!
Don’t tell kids teacher!
Don’t tell your neighbors!
Don’t tell your mother in law!
There’s an old proverb that means the same thing when it comes to guns.
It’s better to be silent, and thought of as a fool, than to speak, and remove all trace of doubt!
Well said. Don’t advertise your shooting hobby or guns on Facebook or on line either. It WILL be used as “evidence” against you in custody fights, background checks, security clearances, mental health determinations, etc.
I don’t believe this is legal unless the person has been adjudicated according to United States Code.
Under Title 18 /USC Section 922, (d)(4) and (g)(4)
I am not a lawyer, but I think that means a fair and impartial hearing.
If there is no hearing, then there is probably no warrant.
Was a Search Warrant ever presented.
If no valid warrant that is illegal gun confiscation.
If it is illegal gun confiscation, I would be sure to aim for the head.
Just as a reminder that all the VA Hospitals are Federal Property and as such are one of the Prohibited Places to bring a Firearm. Even if you keep it in your vehicle.
They don’t have to raid your house.
They can just search your vehicle without any probable cause or search warrant.
Could someone design a bacterium that will kill ATF people any time they get angry?
Then all we have to do is get them angry when they come for us.
I used to live across the street from that va, for some reason the security guards would park at my apartment complex.
Additionally they spent months upgrading all the entrance barriers, when they were finished they looked exactly the same. A significant amount of work was put into it. Very suspicious
Additionally, the air conditioning units are about 3 times larger than what is needed for the building. We would always joke it was a chimpanzee research facility…… the joke is something suspicious is going on there.
There are thousands of parking spots, only about 5-10% are ever full.
Last but not least, they share the compound with the IRS, ewwwws
Like Shannon watts, I got a feeling about that place which I cannot shake, kinda like That factory on n Lamar and braker behind Walgreens, RDX? Maybe. Genetics? Maybe subjugation by the oligarchy? Probably. 😉
This is stupid, this isn’t a blog this isn’t an opinion or a review. Its just come UNVERIFIED copy paste of a story, all he said she said. TTAG needs to review what they let their people post. Mabye this Sara T shouldnt be posting at all
This story has been around for at least a year, and had been widely reported outside of the Democratic Campaign Public Information Office (oops, mainstream media). The fact that a Senate committee investigation appears to be imminent gives it plenty of legitimacy.
If you aren’t committed enough to click through a couple of links to verify the veracity and provenance of the information, you probably shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the info as rumors or hearsay. It leaves people to question which is more suspect; your intelligence or your motives?
He’s lucky.
Here in good ol California, you have to prove you actually own the gun with a sales receipt (I’m sure all of us save the sales receipt for every gun we’ve ever owned right), if you can’t do that, they sell them and keep the cash under asset forfeiture. You dont get squat, even though you were never charged, let alone convicted, of anything.
Unlike broken bones and infections, mental illness comes down to somebody’s subjective opinion. Grounds for weapons forfeiture without trial and appeal? In Russia, yes. In a Democracy? No!!!!
Gun control is not about safety of the public if it was they would simply disarm the black & Hispanic gangs and that would stop 90% of the gun problem in this country but again that is not about public safety it is about CONTROL OF THE CIVILIAN POPULATION ! it is easier to take over a country when it’s citizens are unarmed.
We need to abolish the VA system and completely rebuild it, from the ground up. It’s going to continue to spiral down the drain. I don’t think it can be saved at this point.
So correct me if I’m wrong!!!
We fight for our country, we now have multiple disabilities, one of which is PTSD (post dramatic stress disorder). We did not ask for these disabilities and now we are being treated as FELONS and take away our gun because the VA can’t do their job right so they turn our records over to the FBI to invade in our privacy which is a violation of our hippa rights.
I BELIEVE ITS COMING. MY HUSBAND GETS QUESTIONED ABOUT HIS GUNS EVERYTIME HE GOES FOR HIS PTSD.