The Social Security Administration has released the details of how it proposes to identify some recipients for bans on possessing and acquiring firearms.
First broached last July in what the National Rifle Association is calling the “largest gun grab in American history,” President Obama called on the SSA in January to advance a rulemaking process by which certain individuals receiving benefits would be reported to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the database Federal Firearms Licensees use to determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms and/or explosives. This would effectively make them a prohibited firearms possessor.
Acting Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin signed the proposed rule, set to be posted to the Federal Register, on April 28.
Included in the 41-page document is the five-step qualification process that will be used to first identify and then report selected Title II and Title XVI beneficiaries to the Department of Justice.
First, individuals would have to file a claim based on disability. Next, the individual would have to have been adjudicated as having a Mental Disorder Listing and a corresponding primary diagnosis code in Social Security’s records based on that mental impairment.
Further, the individual would have to be an adult over 18 but under retirement age. Finally, after matching the other four conditions, the beneficiary would have to receive their benefits through a representative payee approved by the agency due to being incapable of managing their own payments.
“As a result, individuals whom we are required to report to NICS will be a subset of the universe of individuals for whom we have appointed a representative payee,” noted the rule.