Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said this week tens of thousands of veterans are being unfairly prevented by the government from buying and owning guns.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Iowa lawmaker argues the ban on guns for certain veterans returning from combat "effectively voids their Second Amendment rights,"
reports The Hill.
The ban, according to The Hill, blocks more than 143,000 people — including 83,000 veterans — from buying firearms because the Department of Veterans Affairs puts them in the "mental defective" classification in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
All federal agencies are able to classify people to this FBI-managed database, but the VA, according to The Hill, is responsible for about 99 percent of the names on the list.
At issue is why the VA assigns names to the list, as the department classifies some veterans in the "mental defective" category for being "incompetent" and needing assistance financially.
The VA, Grassley wrote, doesn't take into consideration the federal standard of "whether a veteran is a danger to himself, herself, or others."
"It's disturbing to think that the men and women who dedicated themselves to defending our freedom and values face undue threats to their fundamental Second Amendment rights from the very agency established to serve them," wrote Grassley, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman.
"A veteran or dependent shouldn't lose their constitutional rights because they need help with bookkeeping."
Earlier this year, meanwhile,
Grassley played a role in helping shoot down an ATF proposal that would have banned a popular type of ammunition for AR-15 rifles.
Grassley was also critical of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate who is involved in a scandal stemming from her use of a private email address on a home-based server during her time as secretary of state. Grassley, like other critics, said
Clinton broke the law and should be charged.
"Some people are suggesting she could even be prosecuted and it's as simple as this — she was using a private email address instead of a government one and it probably violates the Freedom of Information Act. It probably violates national security legislation laws," Grassley said last month on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
The 81-year-old Grassley is running for his seventh term in the 2016 election.
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