Obama Gun Resolution Restricting Mentally Ill Ownership Expected To Be Repealed

The U.S. Senate, controlled by the Republican Party, voted on a new gun bill today, a “Resolution of Disapproval,” putting an end to approved regulations brought in under the administration of former President Barack Obama that will allow about 75,000 social security recipients deemed incapable of managing their own financial affairs the right to buy guns again, as reported by NPR.

The measure was passed by a 57-43 margin and is now before President Donald Trump, who ran on a campaign of support for the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment, and is “widely expected” to approve it.

Former President Obama approved the legislation as a response to the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy. The rule, which was set to be put into use in December, would have allowed those whose names were reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to appeal resulting decisions restricting gun ownership, stopping the measure short of a total ban, as reported by The Hill.

Democrat Chris Murphy, a U.S. senator from Connecticut, asked of the gun bill “If you can’t manage your own financial affairs, how can we expect that you’re going to be a responsible steward of a dangerous, lethal firearm?”

Proponents of the bill, such as the NRA, the American Civil Liberties Union, and U.S. Senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley, are reported to cite varying motivations.

“If a specific individual is likely to be violent due to the nature of their mental illness, then the government should have to prove it,” Senator Grassley was quoted by NPR.

The ACLU is said to oppose the bill’s effect of stereotyping mentally impaired individuals. The NRA is said to oppose the measure because of the restrictions it places on the Second Amendment rights of citizens. Others are said to point to the fact that the vast majority of those who may have difficulty managing their own finances and need them managed by third parties, the group targeted by the rule, are non-violent and include those with eating and sleeping challenges.

Twenty schoolchildren and six teachers were murdered during the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, which is now the third-largest mass shooting in U.S. history, as previously reported by the Inquisitr. Worldwide, school shootings are said to be occurring at a rate of about one per week in the wake of the Connecticut massacre.

In December 2016, it was reported that 94 deaths and 156 injuries had occurred in school shooting incidents since 2012. It was further noted that figures do not include the many plans by children to carry out shootings thwarted by authorities, with an incident in Oklahoma involving a “heavily armed” 13-year-old girl suspected to be planning to attack classmates she had previously threatened being held up as evidence.

The measure passed was a “Resolution of Disapproval,” described as a “rarely used” mechanism, giving legislators the power to overturn executive measures with a majority vote from both the House and Senate.

Reacting to the approval of the measure, Cenk Uygur, host and co-founder of The Young Turks, found irony in the fact that in the wake of past shootings and calls for tighter gun control measures Republicans have argued that violence is not a gun issue, but a mental health issue. The Inquisitr has previously reported on the 40-time disparity of per capita gun violence in countries with tight gun controls, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, and the United States, which has relatively lax gun legislation.

“I know they want to sell more weapons,” Uygur said of the resolution.

“I know all those politicians are deeply corrupt and they all get paid by the NRA.”

The host asked those profiting from the weapons used in mass shootings to consider the lives of surviving family members. He also asked the senators who supported the bill how they would feel if one of the affected constituents affected visited their offices carrying a weapon.

“Did I get the check from the NRA or did I not get the check?”

Uygur described “crocodile tears” being shed by some of those supporting the bill in the name of the slight toward the mentally ill and questioned their motivations, making note that he believes the ACLU’s support of the measure in that vein is genuine and “totally, completely, and utterly wrong.”

[Featured Image by Thomas Cooper/Getty Images]