Social Security Recipients with Fiduciaries Are Now Prohibited Persons

[SilentStalker]

Originally posted by: JRH6856

Their "logic" is that if senior citizens can't manage their affairs, then anyone helping them for any reason has access to their residence and possessions, including firearms. Obviously (to them) access to firearms by unknown persons is a bad thing (especially access to guns by anyone is a bad thing.) Bottom line is that to them, access to guns is bad and anything that reduces access is good.

Hit the nail on the head.

 

[Ed Ames]

Who exactly will SSA be reporting? They appear to have 2 kinds of beneficiaries who could be reported - incapable and incompetent.

Both.

But, in case this hasn't crossed your mind: SSA reporting those who are "incompetent" is redundant. That's not what this story is about.

B: Incompetent (or legally incompetent) – a decision made by a State court that an individual is unable to manage his or her affairs.

State court records are already checked by the FBI during a NICS check. As such, reporting by the SSA is redundant and if that was the end of it there would be no net change in the number of prohibited persons. This wouldn't be news except as an example of government waste. However, the SSA (like the VA before them) is asserting that people with a fiduciary are mentally unsound even if they would not meet the legal standards to have a court declare them incompetent. They will be reporting them all, regardless of their competence.

 

[TimSr]

Does anyone else see the irony in the federal government deciding that not being competent to manage financial affairs is the basis on which your guns can be confiscated by a government that is not competent to manage financial affairs?

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

A: "Incapable – a determination we make that a beneficiary is unable to manage or direct the management of funds. We pay benefits due a beneficiary determined incapable through a representative payee. We base a determination of incapability on various kinds of evidence.

Our determination of incapability is not the same as a State court’s finding of “legal incompetence” and the two findings are not necessarily equivalent.

B: Incompetent (or legally incompetent) – a decision made by a State court that an individual is unable to manage his or her affairs. We presume that any beneficiary a State court finds legally incompetent needs a payee for SSA benefits. On the other hand, a beneficiary we determine incapable might not also be legally incompetent.

I think JohnBT provided part of the puzzle I was missing in reading this. SSA does actually make a distinction between "Incapable" and "Incompetent" in tracking beneficiaries. "Incompetent" beneficiaries have the Certification of Court Records determining incompetence noted in their files.

It is a little cloudy because "Incapable" can include mentally ill, drug abusers, and other Prohibited Persons under 18 USC 922 (g), and under SSA rules, you can be "Incompetent" but still "Capable" for purposes of their classification system.

The short version is though that unless you have been declared incompetent in a state court proceeding (and that information has been forwarded to SSA) OR you have had a legal guardian appointed for you in a state court proceeding (and that state court is on a list of states SSA allows), you will not be reported to NICS as a "Prohibited Person" (assuming the LA Times reporter correctly reported the fine distinction between Incapable and Incompetent, and the SSA proceeds to implement it that way).

The good news: People who have had a Representative Payee appointed because they are incapable will not be entered into NICS and SSA will not be reporting anyone to NICS who did not receive at least a court hearing, so the room for error is much reduced.

The bad news: People who are considered by "Incompetent" by SSA will still include people who do not meet the standards set by 18 USC 922 (g). The state courts won't be making determinations whether these people are a danger to themselves or others and the proceedings used to deny these people their Second Amendment rights will be used retroactively even when the State court did not intend that result.

 

[JRH6856]

All I can see in the LATimes article is:

Social Security would generally report names under the same "mental defective" category. The agency is still figuring out how that definition should be applied, LaVelle said.​

Which does not (yet) sound like such good news.

 

[Ed Ames]

...assuming the LA Times reporter correctly reported the fine distinction between Incapable and Incompetent, and the SSA proceeds to implement it that way...

But the article makes it clear that the author does not know what distinction the SSA will make.

"There is no simple way to identify that group, but a strategy used by the Department of Veterans Affairs since the creation of the background check system is reporting anyone who has been declared incompetent to manage pension or disability payments and assigned a fiduciary.

"If Social Security, which has never participated in the background check system, uses the same standard as the VA, millions of its beneficiaries would be affected."

The VA standard:

http://www.benefits.va.gov/fiduciary/beneficiary.asp

How it works out:

https://www.nraila.org/articles/201...aries-brings-further-shame-to-troubled-agency

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

That's the disturbing part. It looks like VA is using something closer to adding anyone "Incapable" to NICS (based on the NRA-ILA story). And that is with just 100,000 veterans reported to NICS.

SSA is proposing adding 4.2 million more names without any due process. If they do that using just the "Incompetent" definition rather than the "Incapable" that will be a relief to several here; but is still unacceptable and should be addressed.

 

[Red Wind]

It's just another Obama nightmare. My he leave the scene in January,2017 without too much more 2A damage done,

Buchanan, Harding and Carter are feeling better. No doubt who our worst POTUS is now. None. Takes the Prize.

 

[alsaqr]

i can't understand where the four million figure is coming from. In a report dated July, 2011 the GAO is saying that as of 2009, 765,000 social security recipients had fiduciaries:

Incapacity is often associated with old age, and as of December 2009, 765,771 SSA beneficiaries age 65 or older had fiduciaries—a 7 percent increase since December 2003. As of July 2011, 56,077 VA beneficiaries age 65 or older had fiduciaries—a 21 percent increase since September 2003. Few national data are available on the number of guardians state courts have appointed.

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrB...1678.pdf/RK=0/RS=S1I8rnklNovD8Y3JEF9RpYVNp9g-

 

[steve4102]

can't understand where the four million figure is coming from. In a report dated July, 2011 the GAO is saying that as of 2009, 765,000 social security recipients had fiduciaries:

Incapacity is often associated with old age, and as of December 2009, 765,771 SSA beneficiaries age 65 or older had fiduciaries—a 7 percent increase since December 2003. As of July 2011, 56,077 VA beneficiaries age 65 or older had fiduciaries—a 21 percent increase since September 2003. Few national data are available on the number of guardians state courts have appointed.

Not all collecting SS Disability are of age 65 and older.

From the original post article.


About 2.7 million people are now receiving disability payments from Social Security for mental health problems, a potentially higher risk category for gun ownership. An addition 1.5 million have their finances handled by others for a variety of reasons.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-gun-law-20150718-story.html#page=1

 

[JRH6856]

i can't understand where the four million figure is coming from. In a report dated July, 2011 the GAO is saying that as of 2009, 765,000 social security recipients had fiduciaries:



http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrB...1678.pdf/RK=0/RS=S1I8rnklNovD8Y3JEF9RpYVNp9g-

Per SSA, the number of Americans under 65 receiving Supplemental Security Income (disability) is 4.6 million as of May 2015. I suspect that may be the source of the 4 million number. Of course, not all recipients of SSI have a fiduciary representative so there seems to be a bit of a discrepancy in the math.

 

[Sol]

Excuse me, I have been paying into Social Security since I was 16 and am still paying in. It will probably be broke before I am old enough to draw any money but that is not tax payer money it's my money at least until I draw every penny I and my employers have paid in which is sometime after 80, if I live that long, otherwise the goverment is money ahead.
How I spend my money in my retirement is my business.

I could also argue that a firearm for self defense is a basic necessity as well, not a luxury.

This policy is just wrong. Maybe I have a hard time balanceing my check book and remembering to pay bills on time, (I don't) but I am still able to determine when someone breaks in my house at night. Because I have someone to help with the first part my ability to do the second part would no longer matter.
It's just wrong....sigh

Drawing social security as a qualifying aged retiree is slightly differant than drawing it as a disabled person.

 

[JRH6856]

After a little more research, there does appear to be a discrepancy in the numbers reported (surprise, surprise). The source of the 4.2 million is unknown. As of May 2015, SSA reported a total of 4.6 million Americans under age 65 receiving Supplemental Security Income only. That is the only number I can find that comes close to 4.2 million. Not all of these recipients have fiduciaries. In the 2011 GAO report on fiduciary requirements cited in #84, SSA reported that the number of recipients of SS retirement benefits 65 and over with fiduciaries was 765,771 (this is out of total recipients of over 40 million. There was no similar reporting of the number of SSI recipients under 65 using fiduciaries but if the percentages are the same, it would be around 75,000. So the total number (SSR & SSI) with fiduciaries would be around 840,000, not 4.2 million.

Sumpthing is wrong somewhere.

 

[wideym]

A few years ago, the local news aired a story of a local disabled vet who had his CCW permit revoked and there was the usual outrage. He was 100% rated, various causes and none combat related, when his local VFW service rep told him that if he was declared incompetent his wife would be able to draw additional money if she was declared his caretaker.

 

[ofitg]

About 2.7 million people are now receiving disability payments from Social Security for mental health problems, a potentially higher risk category for gun ownership. An addition 1.5 million have their finances handled by others for a variety of reasons.

Isn't it true that anybody living in the same house with a "Prohibited Person" must remove his own guns from the house (to make them inaccessible to the "Prohibited Person")?

This new policy could affect millions more than the article suggests.


...

 

[JRH6856]

Isn't it true that anybody living in the same house with a "Prohibited Person" must remove his own guns from the house (to make them inaccessible to the "Prohibited Person")?

This new policy could affect millions more than the article suggests.


...

I thought the issue was that one is supposed to be a prohibited person to be on the NICS restricted list and just having a fiduciary does not raise one to that level.

I don't think it is certain that being reported as restricted to NICS makes one a prohibited person, though it is probably true that being on the list makes it difficult to avoid being treated as one.

 

[USMC6600]

Well, this is just another way to open the door another crack.

I don't think anyone will cry too loudly if some elderly person that can not manage his or her own financial affairs, has their right to own and use firearms taken away.

However, if we allow that to happen with out due process, we have allowed the fox to enter the hen house.

Why when we go to the VA for a medical check do they ask us if we own firearms, and what kind?

"We live in the greatest country in the world, help me change it." I will never forget that famous statement from the mouth of the community organizer.

Glad I don't work on Marine One. Only way I could salute that man is with my center digit raise a little higher than the rest.

 

[Snyper]

Irrelevant. We are discussing something that applies to social security retirement recipient. Disability is only a subset and VA is a total red herring.

No, it specifically says those "declared mentally incompetent"

Disability is not a "subset" if you are declared mentally incompetent in order to obtain those benefits, which can be done at age 18.

VA is how it all got started, as shown in the links I posted

 

[USAF_Vet]

Have we had a growing rash of senior citizens shooting people that I haven't heard about? I think I'd much more trust the family to remove grandpa's guns when the time is right, than to trust it to Washington.

It's not about reducing the number of senior citizen involved shootings, it's about reducing the net number of guns on the streets.

If my 84 year old Korean War veteran grandfather, who is early stages of Alzheimer's, is declared mentally incompetent by the SSA, where would his guns go? Would they go to his family, or would G-men swoop in and confiscate them? Or, since none are registered and most are probably pre '68 GCA, they'll probably sit there until family determines that it's time to remove them. It's not like he has a lot of interest to purchase more.

At this point, none of that nonsense is necessary, but if his condition worsens, it's an inevitable situation. My mother is doing most of the grunt work associated with his care. Thankfully she is pro-2A and would transfer the guns to herself before letting any jack booted thug gain access to my grandparents' house to search for them.

 

[JohnBT]

There are 3 major SSA programs fwiw.

Retirement.

SSDI - Disability insurance for those who have worked enough to qualify.

SSI - Supplemental Security Income - Disability for those who have not worked enough to qualify for SSDI.

I frequently worked with individuals who received both SSDI and SSI. They had worked enough to get a little SSDI, but the check was so small they also qualified for some SSI.

Add in the spouses and children getting some benefits based on the applicants record and the numbers get even more confusing.

John

 

[TimSr]

If my 84 year old Korean War veteran grandfather, who is early stages of Alzheimer's, is declared mentally incompetent by the SSA, where would his guns go? Would they go to his family, or would G-men swoop in and confiscate them? Or, since none are registered and most are probably pre '68 GCA, they'll probably sit there until family determines that it's time to remove them.

This is exactly why they are putting the "do you own firearms" questions in so many unrelated government forms. As soon as grandpa is declared incompetent, they check his medicare form with the "do you own firearms" question, and seize them, and don't all them to go to family members. Far fetched? We already have states that seize firearms upon somone's death so the families cannot have them until they done a mountain paperwork and legal manuevers.

 

[Dframe]

The ultimate goal is to ever increase the number of people who are prohibited. The anit-gunners will not stop until everyone is banned for some reason or other.

 

[old lady new shooter]

[QUOTEAll the 'unable person' has to do to stop it, for example, is show that they are competent enough to write a check and pay for their electric/water, they can get food and eat it themsleves etc.]

Wrong. I can do all those things and handle firearms yet the SSA MADE my wife be my representative for financial affairs. Now they're going to take them away for something I had no control of?[/QUOTE]
On what grounds did they do this?

 

[old lady new shooter]

Based on what LA Times is reporting, you'd still be added to NICS since the Trust is a representative payee.

Hopefully, SSA wakes up to find their chair on fire Monday morning and decides to be more selective in complying with the order rather than following the same bad policy set by the VA.

Off the top of my head I would think if the trust is revocable they could not add the grantor, because the grantor by having retained the right to terminate the trust obviously is not being "financially represented" for reasons of incompetence.

 

[patmccoy]

There is no reason for SSA to even know a living trust exists. Current SS deposits are simply made to a checking account which is owned by the trust. No need for anything on the checks other than the usual information on personal checks. If/when the SS recipient becomes unable to handle their own finances there is no change, other than the designated trustee becomes the signor of the checks (usually the spouse, who was most likely on the account for a long time). No reason for SSA to have any idea of the physical or mental status of the recipient.

Went through this with my folks prior to their deaths, with no problems. Daad had Parkinsons, and Mon later had Alzheimers. While Medicare was fuly aware, SSA had no idea.