Dom Raso highlights a bureaucratic flaw that’s unfairly stripping veterans of their Second Amendment rights — and tells you how to help get it fixed.
A transcription of the video:
Under Obama’s administration, there’s been a serious downsizing of our military. I’ve got my own thoughts on that, but I’ll save them for another time. Reality is, we’ve got a large number of people getting out of the military with a ton of combat and military experience; men and women being thrown back into civilian life. There have been several incidents already involving these vets and their rights being taken away from them.
Recently, there was a vet that had to defend his home from a felon who was trying to break in. He fired a warning shot in the ground to scare the guy off and then told the police that his military training kicked in. Now whether that’s true or not, or even if he went into combat mode, the guy was having his house broken into. He clearly stated to the guy that was trying to force entry into his home and that he was going to give him a warning shot if he didn’t stop his forward progress. All he did was fire a warning shot into the ground, and then the criminal ran off.
But the focus wasn’t on the convicted felon trying to break into his house; it was on the veteran who did everything possible to safely defend his home. The police actually took his gun away. There is something seriously wrong with our system if we are stripping his gun away because according to the police, he wasn’t justified to discharge a round. According to our oh-so-knowledgeable vice president, that’s exactly what he should be doing to ward off would-be attackers and burglars. Sounds like our vice president is giving us some false info.
That was an unfortunate situation that affected one person, but I also want to talk about a serious problem that’s resulting in many more vets losing their Second Amendment rights for no reason. When a vet is eligible for disability compensation or other benefits, they go through an evaluation process. The way it’s set up right now, if the vet has someone else appointed to manage those benefits on their behalf, they somehow get labeled “mentally defective” and are entered into a background check system as someone unable to buy a gun. This is absolutely wrong. The VA’s review process for assigning a bookkeeper to a veteran in no way determines whether that veteran poses a risk to himself or others. It’s only meant to determine whether or not a veteran needs help managing his or her VA benefits. That has nothing to do with their ability to safely exercise their Second Amendment rights.
More than 100,000 veterans and their family members have been affected by this problem. You can’t just take someone’s right away to bear arms because they need help in other areas. When these guys were overseas risking their young lives for our freedom, the government had no problem putting an M4 in their hands and letting them fend for themselves. So the very idea that that same government would let some paperwork nonsense strip them of their rights that they fought for, is absolutely disgusting.
After you watch this video, I urge you to contact your senator either on the phone or online and let them know that this is a real issue they ought to be spending some time fixing. It’s unbelievable that they’re wasting time talking about useless, unconstitutional gun control laws when there are veterans out there being striped of their rights because of some paperwork problem. So call your senator, and let’s get this fixed.
Call your senators and ask them to support Senate Bill 572, which will correct this injustice.
Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
www.nranews.com/commentators/video/episode-35-vets-with-dom-raso
Tags: NRA News
I’m calling B.S. on this. When did someone’s “military training” cause them to instinctively fire a warning shot?
And I don’t know the law of states in which I’ve not lived, but firing at a possible intruder in self defense before they’ve crossed any sort of threshold is against the law. So someone here is full of crap, and as written, no veteran was discriminated against.
Also, Since Dom Raso feels so strongly about gun rights of the mentally-ill, might I suggest he spend some range time with Eddie Ray Routh.
“a bureaucratic flaw that’s unfairly stripping veterans of their Second Amendment rights.” – SSD
Still not seeing it.
Obviously I can’t know the entire story, but if the weapon played a role in a potential crime, it becomes evidence. Anyone, including LEOs, will have their weapons held as evidence no matter how clear cut the shooting was, until the outcome of the investigation.
…and how would a VA benefits computer net tie into the NICS system? No.
Bill, as someone working DOD data integration for background investigations, Defense Security Enterprise Architecture and access control, let me be the first to tell you, you have no idea what’s really going on in this arena and your patronizing “no” answer can’t be any more wrong.
The VA or DoD does not just assign a “bookkeeper” to assist Vets to manage their benefits because the Vet may not be good at addition or subtraction nor know who to write a check. If someone is appointed to manage those benefits there is a serious mental or health problem with that Vet. My experience has been that Vets committed to mental institutions, or in a coma, or vegetative state are the type of Vets normally assigned these “bookkeepers” who act as executors or testators or primary caregiver. Additionally, these “bookkeepers” are well vetted and must be evaluated on regular basis by the VA or DoD to ensure that they are taking care of the Vet’s best interests. At one point, in my active duty career, I had JAG officers working for me that would go out and interview these executors in person to ensure our veterans were being served properly.
I am a very strong supporter of Second Amendment Rights, but if you need a care taker as in the situations I described above or are unable to manage your finances on your own, then I am not sure you should be allowed to manage a weapon on your own either.
Articles like this makes me doubt everything the NRA says, its become almost 100% political.
the more and more i see the NRA spout this BS, the more and more i dislike them
This video is absurd and the guy is a moron. It’s a mashup of two different things and it helps neither.
First, why should castle doctrine law be applied differently to veterans? That’s nonsense. Laws vary from state to state but if you own a gun then it’s your responsibility to know the law where you live. If warning shots are illegal then that’s got nothing to do with whether or not you served in the military. If you don’t like it then work to get the law changed. Also, warning shots into the ground? Wut?
Second issue is hugely oversimplified. I’d like to see the data instead of anecdotal evidence, but it’s fair to say that the system needs to differentiate between soldiers that need some help getting their paperwork in order and soldiers with serious mental problems that would bring them into conflict with current background check requirements. That would require some amount of effort on the part of the respective agencies so it will never happen.
Review the recent Reuters report on wasteful spending at the Pentagon for a summary of how poorly they manage their accounting and paperwork.
I apologize for saying that the commentator is a moron. That is rude and unnecessary.
spot on.
Being a Veteran should give you no special rights or exemptions to the law. If anything you should know enough to look up and understand the rules for the use of deadly force in your area! ROE? RUF? We dont even use warning shots in Afghanistan anymore. too dangerous to bystanders. He should have known better.
And you’re correct. The VA is not handing out random notices to vets that they cannot own a firearm anymore.
The process in which the VA assigns a fiduciary (someone to help manage the finances because the individual has severe enough mental impairment to be deemed legally incompetant or mentally defective) is extremely lengthy with numerous chances to appeal and prevent the ruling from happening. Lots of hearings, tons of due process, and not at all thrown around lightly.
The number is blown out of proportion in this video.
(100,000, i believe is since the law’s inception in 1994 so while it sounds like it is a lot when presented like it was, it really isn’t)
“but it’s fair to say that the system needs to differentiate between soldiers that need some help getting their paperwork in order and soldiers with serious mental problems that would bring them into conflict with current background check requirements.”
it already does. as mentioned above this is not some automatic process in which the VA slaps a label on a vet and says “dude is crazy, take his guns”. It is extremely deliberate and has lots of chances for the vet in question to make his or her case and prevent it from happening.
This process has been going on for years, and as much as i generally dislike the current pres’ policies, it predates him as well.
I hate when orginazations (to include the NRA) try to sensationalize things like this, to me it detracts from the tons of legitimate grievances we could be fighting for.
There are much bigger veterans issues at hand too, if the NRA wants to help us out they could do much better than this.
I am a combat veteran of Afghanistan and I work for the VA. in case anyone wants to know where this post is coming from.
I generally don’t chime in on these things, because someone always turns it into an anti-verteran thing.. However, I notice all of the prior posts are in line with exactly what I was thinking as I read this.
Know the laws of your your State, that is your responsibility. For instance where I live, there is no castle doctorine/stand your ground. Rather the lawfulness of your use of force is based on the knowledge you possessed at the time force was applied. Basically, is it reasonable that you were in fear of your life/safety and/or that of others. So, depending on circumstances, you don’t have to waite for a bad guy to completely bust the door open before you are “reasonably in fear for your safety or the safety of others.” Conversely, you don’t just get to blast a guy through door because you someone you don’t know is knocking on the door… Etc…. However, “warning shots” are generally not reasonable/legal, you are either in imminent (“reasonable”)fear or you’re not, so either you are justified to shot the bad guy or you aren’t… that said, depending on circumstances, the ole’ warning shot may be an alternative to a legit shoot situation?
The issue regarding the VA assigning someone to handle a Vet’s financial affairs, is something I have no knowledge of, so I’ll leave that one alone, as it sounds like guys who are knowledgable in this area have already chimed in and called BS.
It seems vetren issues are the new “go to” tool for the NRA, which is at the very least distasteful. I don’t pretend to know what returning vet’s are going through/dealing with. So I will leave that one alone too.
I live in a commie country. They all trick you with “reasonable control” which all can agree with. We all want to be reasonable so we fall into the trap. It is the first stratagem a Fabian learns.
The NRA is totally useless, they just want protect the small arms industry. If the government would the industry automatic sales the NRA would not care about the 2nd amendment.
GOA is the real 2nd amendment protectors.
Exactly this. The NRA doesnt give a **** about the people, they care about the manufacturers and all that $$$ they get.
Does no one remember having “shout, show, shove, shoot, shoot, shoot
” beat into their head during the surge era of OIF? How is it not reasonable to assume that this is the training the “kicked” in for the vet in question?
a more reasonable expectation of that vet in question would be that he would have the prudence and judgement to learn and abide by the rules for the use of deadly force in his area.
Warning shots have been discouraged in military ROE for sometime now. They were strictly forbidden when i was in afghanistan in 2011.
They’ve been against ROE since at least Iraq 2003. Not just discouraged, but against ROE.
Not so much for us, they were still pounding it home in 07-09. It was still part of our ROE and EOF. Now, was that a fuck up somewhere up the chain past Battalion level putting out info that had been surpassed years prior? Quite possibly, and I don’t doubt it. Im just saying they were still preaching it. Hell I still have those little ROE cards with the ARCENT logo on them somewhere from that deployment.
like i said, strictly forbidden when i was in afghanistan in 2011.
apologies if the use of discouraged caused confusion.