Coburn Amendment (#3700) on Second Amendment Rights
Below please find a summary from my colleague Gregg Nunziata regarding the Coburn amendment (#3700) on Second Amendment rights…
Senator Coburn has proposed an amendment to the Health Care Reconciliation Bill, H.R. 4872, to ensure that no veterans be denied their Second Amendment rights without due process.This amendment is identical to S. 669, the Veterans 2d Amendment Protection Act.Summary• This bill requires no veterans be denied their Second Amendment rights without due process.
• Specifically, veterans who are considered mentally incompetent for purposes of assigning benefit payments, may not be considered “adjudicated as a mental defective” unless they have been found by a judicial authority to be a danger to themselves or to others.
• Currently, these veterans are immediately considered “adjudicated as a mental defective” and lose their rights to possess and purchase firearms even though they are no danger to themselves or others.Considerations
• According to CRS, over 140,000 veterans have been added to a national database of those prohibited from owning or purchasing a firearm.
• This bill is endorsed by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, AMVETS, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Gun Owners of America, the NRA, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
• S. 669 is a bipartisan measure, Senator Jim Webb is one of the original cosponsors.