GOP Votes to Repeal Rule Banning mentally Ill From Owning Guns

Last week while most Americans were focused on Trump’s Muslim ban, House Republicans voted to repeal an Obama-era rule barring gun ownership from people deemed mentally incapable of managing their own affairs. This rule affected about 75,000 recipients of disability insurance and supplemental insurance income because of a disabling mental disorder ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia.  While the number of attacks committed by immigrants from the seven predominately Muslim countries named in Trump’s travel ban stands at a hard zero it is estimated that 10% of all homicides in the US are committed by the mentally ill. The rule issued in December of last year as a response to the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings required the Social Security Administration to send records of people on disability insurance because of mental illness to the federal background check system. Although 93% of Americans support background checks to keep guns out of dangerous hands, Republicans lobbied by the National Rifle Association feel that this rule was infringing on the Second Amendment rights of the mentally disabled.