FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Washington, D.C. – The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) applauds today’s committee passage of the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act (H.R. 1041), as amended, which will put a stop to the VA’s shameful practice of stripping veterans of their Second Amendment rights without due process.
The bill, advanced by Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) and reported favorably out of committee without any weakening amendments, reflects growing national outrage over the VA’s backdoor gun control scheme known as the “Veterans’ Gun Ban”. Under current policy, over 250,000 veterans have been reported to the FBI’s NICS database simply for having a fiduciary appointed to help manage their benefits. These veterans were never convicted of a crime or found dangerous by a judge.
“This is a major step forward in restoring basic constitutional rights to the very people who fought to defend them,” said Dustin Curtis, NAGR’s Director of Political Affairs. “For decades, unelected VA bureaucrats have acted as judge, jury, and executioner — disarming veterans behind closed doors without so much as a court hearing.”
The bill, as amended and reported favorably by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, prohibits the VA from sending a veteran’s name to the NICS system solely based on fiduciary status unless a judge has ruled that the veteran is a danger to themselves or others. It also directs the VA to notify the Attorney General that the basis for prior reports to NICS no longer applies, setting the stage to restore the rights of hundreds of thousands of veterans who were wrongfully disarmed.
“This is more than a policy failure, it’s a moral disgrace,” Curtis continued. “Veterans should never have to choose between getting help and keeping their rights. And under this bill, they won’t.”
“This is nothing more than gun control dressed up as ‘mental health bureaucracy,’” said Dudley Brown, President of the National Association for Gun Rights. “The anti-gun Left has used the VA to quietly purge veterans from the gun-owning population for decades. Now they’ve been caught red-handed, and we’re fighting like hell to stop it.”
“The fight isn’t over yet. The bill heads to the full House, and every gun owner in America — veteran or not — should be watching. Because if they can disarm a veteran for needing help with their bills, they can disarm you for just about anything,” Brown consulted.
NAGR staff lobbied Committee members and delivered stacks of grassroots petitions to Capitol Hill ahead of the committee markup, demanding immediate passage of the bill and a complete restoration of rights for affected veterans. The organization vows to continue mobilizing its millions of members until H.R. 1041 is passed by the House and signed into law.
For more information, please contact Taylor Rhodes at media@gunrights.org.
The National Association for Gun Rights is a 501(c)(4) organization headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, dedicated to defending the Second Amendment and fighting for the rights of peaceable Americans to keep and bear arms. Since its founding in 2001, NAGR has worked to hold anti-gun politicians accountable and promote maximum individual liberty by mobilizing more than 4.5 million members and grassroots activists nationwide.
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