Fake News Onslaught Depicts Social Security Gun Ban Repeal as Arming Dangerous Citizens

Last week’s House vote to repeal Barack Obama’s Social Security gun ban sparked a fake news onslaught as media tried to depict the repeal as something that armed dangerous citizens.

For example, Politico reported the repeal of the gun ban as a repeal of a “background check rule” and Bloomberg reported that it would allow “guns for the mentally incompetent.”

Politico and Bloomberg were not alone.

MSBNC reported that the vote to repeal the Social Security “[expanded] gun access for mentally impaired” people and USA Today claimed it was an effort to “strike [a] rule banning guns for some deemed mentally impaired.”

The USA Today claim is especially egregious because it makes it sound like those who would lose their rights are already known. But the appeal is not static; it can grow year-by-year as the Social Security Administration investigations into beneficiaries continue. This means the people who would lose their Second Amendment rights may not even be on the SSA’s radar at this time. Moreover, there are questions as to whether those added to the list would have their Due Process rights violated in the process.

The questions about Due Process lead to concerns that an 85-year-old woman who suddenly loses her husband of 60 years may be adjudicated mentally deficient if she requires help with her finances while going through the emotional shock of adjusting to life alone.

Yet NPR reported that a vote to repeal the gun ban was a vote to “overturn Obama rule restricting gun sales to the severely mentally ill.” And Representative Elizabeth Esty (D-CT-5) said the repeal “was about weakening our firearms background check system, plain and simple.”

The only thing plain and simple about all these claims is that they are fake news, plain and simple.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.