The VA, working to disarm law abiding veterans without due process.

By Rob Janicki

It's too bad the VA can't work as diligently on providing timely services for the veterans it is mandated to serve, rather than trying to engage in Gestapo like tactics to violate the constitutional rights of the veterans it purports to serve.

 

It's not that the Veterans Administration doesn't have enough to do to keep them occupied, what with the scandal with VA hospitals stonewalling vets on medical services ending in death for some veterans waiting months for life saving services.  Now we find out the VA is a snitch on veterans who may or may not be having psychological problems.  Whatever happened to doctor/patient confidentiality?  Apparently in the VA system, a veteran patient loses his or her right to privacy and due process.

The scandal-ridden Department of Veterans Affairs has been running a secret program in an effort to confiscate veterans’ guns by sending personal medical and financial information to the FBI. This information is being used to evaluate veterans as mentally incompetent and subsequently bans them from owning a firearm without proper legal backing. Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has expressed deep concerns over these VA evaluations:

"But there’s something wrong when a whole class of people get swept up and denied the right to own guns because if you’re on this list with the Department of Justice and you go in to buy a gun…and they see your name, you can’t buy a gun."

So, without a formal psychiatric evaluation of a veteran patient in a VA facility, the VA surreptitiously sends the Department of Justice medical and financial information on a veteran patient without that patient's knowledge.  What ever happened to due process?  Whatever happened to having a competency hearing to determine the mental state of a veteran patient?  This is a blatant plan to disarm law abiding American veterans under the guise of an authority that the VA does not possess.  And all of this is being done without the knowledge of the affected veteran.

And what's with the VA forwarding a veteran's financial records to the DoJ?  What relevance does this have on the mental health of a veteran?  There's more to this situation and hopefully Senator Grassley  and his Senate committee will get to the bottom of this travesty of justice.