Social Security Recipients with Fiduciaries Are Now Prohibited Persons

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Update

The key language from the article is this:

There is no simple way to identify that group, but a strategy used by the Department of Veterans Affairs since the creation of the background check system is reporting anyone who has been declared incompetent to manage pension or disability payments and assigned a fiduciary.

Apparently in Social Security lingo, there are two categories of beneficiaries who receive Representative Payees - Incapable and Incompetent. The definitions are as follows:

A: "Incapable – a determination we make that a beneficiary is unable to manage or direct the management of funds. We pay benefits due a beneficiary determined incapable through a representative payee. We base a determination of incapability on various kinds of evidence.

Our determination of incapability is not the same as a State court’s finding of “legal incompetence” and the two findings are not necessarily equivalent.

B: Incompetent (or legally incompetent) – a decision made by a State court that an individual is unable to manage his or her affairs. We presume that any beneficiary a State court finds legally incompetent needs a payee for SSA benefits. On the other hand, a beneficiary we determine incapable might not also be legally incompetent.

The "Incapable" category includes prohibited persons like the mentally ill and drug abusers; but also includes those with physical disability, etc. The "Incompetent" category includes only those people with some type of state court proceeding. If you have had a legal guardian appointed for you by a state court or you have been found mentally incompetent to manage your affairs, then you are "Incompetent" in SSA lingo. You can also be "Incompetent" but not "Incapable" apparently.

SSA does track this distinction and can sort these two categories out.

If we assume that the reporter for LA Times used the correct language and SSA used the correct language in talking to the reporter, then the SSA move is aimed only at those who have been "declared incompetent" - meaning that this only affects people who have had some type of state court proceeding and it will not affect people who simply requested a Representative Payee for convenience's sake (at this time anyway). The bad news is there will still be 4.2 million people affected. The proceedings that are being used to remove their Second Amendment rights were in many cases not intended to do that and there is no finding by the courts that they were a danger to themselves or others in many of the cases. Something as simple as having a Legal Guardian appointed by the Court can trigger it (if the person receives SS benefits). So again, there are prohibited persons and non-prohibited persons included in this category; but if you have not had some type of court case involving your competency or having a guardian appointed for you, if you have not sent certified court papers to SSA, you should not have to worry about being included in NICS.

So it is not by any means a good situation; but it is a lot better than the one I've been describing through the thread - of course, all of this assumes that the reporter got that specific language right and that is how SSA meant to implement it, etc. etc.

 

[RAfiringline]

Here's something that's new to me, maybe it's hyped up or out of context...

http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/vets-told-they-can-buy-back-2nd-amendment-rights/

"A legal team investigating the Obama administration’s order that certain American military veterans deemed “incompetent” give up their weapons says the problem is worse than expected.

People who live with veterans now are being ordered not to possess a gun, and some veterans are told they can “buy back” their Second Amendment rights by giving up their veterans’ benefits.

“This is simply unbelievable, On the one hand the [Veterans Administration] and the FBI have found veterans to be mentally ill and too dangerous to be allowed to own firearms, while on the other hand allowing these allegedly dangerous people to buy their firearms rights back,” wrote Michael Connelly, executive director of the United States Justice Foundation in a report. "

 

[Tom Servo]

Or you could think of it as "how many violent crimes COULD they commit..?"

When we start punishing people based on the things they might do, we travel a very dark road.

The proceedings that are being used to remove their Second Amendment rights were in many cases not intended to do that and there is no finding by the courts that they were a danger to themselves or others in many of the cases.

This is what worries me. If I'm just forgetful, I don't deserve to have rights stripped from me.

I honestly can't see what good this will do. This isn't a category of people known for a disposition towards violence. The only reason this is happening is because the administration is desperate to do anything they can to restrict gun ownership.

For the sake of political points, they're willing to throw anybody under the bus. This is the point we need to make when we contact our legislators.

 

[thallub]

This report is titled Oversight of Federal Fiduciaries and Court-Appointed Guardians Needs Improvement. It is dated July, 2011. It's from the GAO to the US senate special committee on aging:

Incapacity is often associated with old age, and as of December 2009, 765,771 SSA beneficiaries age 65 or older had fiduciaries—a 7 percent increase since December 2003. As of July 2011, 56,077 VA beneficiaries age 65 or older had fiduciaries—a 21 percent increase since September 2003. Few national data are available on the number of guardians state courts have appointed

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrB...1678.pdf/RK=0/RS=S1I8rnklNovD8Y3JEF9RpYVNp9g-

 

[Kosh75287]

+1 concerning Motorhead's question. These tyrants don't care about curbing crime, and they never have. It's about stripping gun ownership rights from the electorate, one increment at a time.

This is a gun-grab, plain and simple. Only a President who embodies the "Mendacity of DOPE" would be so bold. The sooner HE'S out of office, the better.

 

[SouthernNitemair]

What about someone who has already passed the NICS background check? Like those with concealed carry permits? How would this effect them on Disability with a payee?

I'm on SSI Disability. My mother is the payee for my account. It was not required but suggested that I have a payee since I had never managed an income (long story). But I was never ruled "mentally incompetent" by a judge nor have I ever been hospitalized. After I started receiving the disability, I figured it would be smart to have the means to defend myself. In my state, the best way to do that and learn the laws was to get your CCW. So me and my family took the class and got our permits.

Are they now going to reverse their decision on my CCW just because, at the time, I was not experienced in handling money? I've since learned how to do all that, online banking makes things easy haha.