On February 17, 2026, President Trump’s Department of Veteran’s Affairs announced it is ending the decades-old practice of reporting veterans to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for using a fiduciary.
On February 27, 2024, Breitbart News reported:
Veterans’ gun rights have long been in the crosshairs of anti-Second Amendment politicians.
For example, in February 2016, during the Obama administration, Breitbart News noted that numerous combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who might need treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder were increasingly hesitant to pursue it because they feared a diagnosis of PTSD would be used to deny their gun rights under the Obama administration.
A combat vet confined to a wheelchair spoke to Breitbart News anonymously at the time, saying, “I was diagnosed with PTSD. What’s being done to be sure my guns aren’t taken away?” He said he lived with the added anxiety of questioning his every trip to the doctor, fearing that he was one visit away from having his gun rights snuffed out.
This also became a serious concern for veterans who needed help balancing their checkbooks and managing their finances due to the mental strain caused by combat. Veterans feared that they faced a stark choice of having a fiduciary or having gun rights.
The fears concerning the retaliation for using a fiduciary can now be done away, as Trump’s VA announced:
The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced a major new step to protect Veterans’ Second Amendment rights. Effective immediately, VA will not report Veterans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System as “prohibited persons” only because they need help from a fiduciary in managing their VA benefits.”
The VA also noted:
In addition to immediately stopping the reporting of VA Fiduciary Program participants to NICS, the department is working with the FBI to remove all past VA reporting from NICS, so no Veterans are unfairly deprived of their Second Amendment rights based solely on participation in VA’s Fiduciary Program.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “It is both unlawful and unacceptable for Veterans who serve our country to have their constitutional rights threatened. It has been my pleasure to partner with [VA Secretary Doug Collins] on this project, and I am directing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to review its regulations and propose changes that will prevent current and future violations of our Veterans’ Second Amendment rights.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.