Veterans Deemed ‘Mentally Incompetent’ Will Gain Gun Rights Under New Funding Bill

A must-pass government funding package will expand gun rights for an unlikely group: veterans deemed mentally incompetent to manage their own affairs.

The rider, buried in the multipart “minibus” spending package, was enough to draw the opposition of Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who has been a leading voice for gun reform since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012.

Though the rider was primarily backed by Republicans, six House Democrats voted in favor of it, according to Roll Call: Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Mary Peltola (Alaska), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) and Gabe Vasquez (N.M.). Jon Tester (D-Mt.) favored the measure in the Senate.

The provision “will be a death sentence for many,” Murphy wrote Wednesday in a widely circulated series of tweets. “It’s unacceptable this provision was pushed by Republicans. Democrats shouldn’t have acquiesced.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) trumpeted the rider as a victory that “prevents the Department of Veterans Affairs from attacking Second Amendment rights.”

For decades, federal law has required the Veterans Affairs Administration to flag the beneficiaries it judges as “mentally incompetent” to the FBI, in order add them to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which blocks their future purchases of firearms.

The VA classifies beneficiaries as mentally defective in cases where the person cannot manage their affairs on their own, requiring a third party to take charge of their finances. The agency bases those decisions on medical evidence and court declarations, and offers processes for beneficiaries to contest the determination, as well as the NICS referral.

The change would