Recently revealed documents led a gun rights organization to accuse hospitals and other medical centers of working with federal law enforcement agencies to secretly strip American citizens of their constitutional right to own, possess, and use firearms.
Certain citizens were asked to sign documents registering their names with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. They were asked to declare that they were a danger to themselves or other people. Others were asked to state that they lacked the “mental capacity to contract” their lives, so they could forfeit their gun rights. Most of the citizens targeted by the FBI had allegedly made violent threats on social media, in person, or in online chat rooms.
According to documents obtained by Gun Owners of America and released to The Washington Examiner, multiple federal agencies were involved. The list includes the Secret Service and U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both subagencies of the Department of Homeland Security. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which administrates the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, was also involved.
These forms were not authorized by Congress and were not previously subject to Congressional oversight.
Existing law suggests that the forms are illegal. According to the Gun Control Act of 1968, a person can be barred from firearm ownership if they are “adjudicated in as mentally defective,” or if they have been committed to a mental institution. There is no provision for pre-adjudication plea agreements.
Gun Owners of America, which filed lawsuits to obtain the forms, decried federal overreach and endorsed a proposed Congressional committee that would investigate collusion between private entities and federal agencies in a tweet.
“Federal bureaucrats have targeted the #SecondAmendment and Big Tech has censored gun owners for too long! That is why GOA supports H. Res. 12 to establish a special committee to investigate whether there has been any illegal collusion between our government the private sector!”
“The government is supposed to be a tool used ONLY to protect the American people and their rights. The abuse of power we’ve seen over recent years is unacceptable and we support this committee’s investigations into the abuses against Americans and the #SecondAmendment,” Gun Owners of America also tweeted.
The Dallas Express contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment but did not receive a response by the time of this article’s publication.
