Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I wish to revisit my discussion with Senator Durbin yesterday regarding my amendment No. 3925 to the Department of Veterans Affairs funding bill.

As I made clear yesterday, this is a commonsense amendment protecting constitutional rights. It is designed to make every effort to ensure that the Second Amendment rights of veterans are protected under the law. Yet the Democrats have objected. Because of that, our veterans will continue to not be protected by their Second Amendment constitutional rights.

Let me make myself very clear. Senator Durbin said my amendment ``doesn't solve the problem.'' ``Doesn't solve the problem'' are his words. Well, the Department of Veterans Affairs is reporting names to the Department of Justice which are then placed on the national gun ban list, and the VA is doing so merely when a veteran is appointed a fiduciary--which does not mean he or she is dangerous. That is the problem.

As I explained yesterday, my amendment requires the VA to first determine that a veteran is a danger to self or others before reporting names. That simply solves the problem.

Senator Durbin also said that under my amendment, ``mental health determinations would no longer count as prohibiting gun possession.'' As I stated yesterday, I do not want people who are known to be dangerous to own and possess firearms. My amendment makes that very clear.

Further, given that plain language, it is obvious that under my amendment, mental health determinations do count because some mental health problems equate to a very dangerous condition. Again, my amendment is centered on forcing the Federal Government to determine whether a veteran is a danger to self or others before revoking his or her constitutional rights to own a firearm.

Senator Durbin said that ``tens of thousands of names currently in the NICS system''--the gun ban list--``would likely need to be purged, meaning these people could go out and buy guns.'' Now, that is not so. If anything, my amendment would require the Federal Government to look over the VA records sent to the gun ban list and verify that those persons on it are dangerous to themselves or others.

That doesn't have to be purging. Rather, the Federal Government would now have the burden of proving a veteran should not be able to exercise his or her fundamental Second Amendment rights. Since there is no purging, but rather dangerous persons will be identified via a constitutional process, it is not accurate to say that ``these people could go out and buy guns.'' Therefore, Senator Durbin has not studied my amendment and its outcome. Really, the government should always provide constitutional due process before infringing on a fundamental constitutional right.

Senator Durbin mentioned 174,000 names were supplied by the VA to the gun ban list and about 15,000 of them had serious mental illnesses. Actually, as of December 2015, the VA has supplied 260,381 names out of the 263,492 in the mental defective category. That happens to be 98.8 percent of the total number of people on the mental defective list that are there because of the VA and not because it has been determined their constitutional rights should be taken away.

Assuming Senator Durbin is correct about the 15,000 who had a serious mental illness, that leaves about 245,000 who did not. Those are 245,000 people whose constitutional rights are being restricted without due process for no good reason. Not a single individual was determined to be dangerous before the VA submitted their name to this list so their constitutional rights could be violated.

My amendment, and my remarks last night, make clear that if a person is dangerous, they will not be able to possess a firearm. Therefore, Senator Durbin's concern that my amendment will allow dangerous people to buy firearms is simply inaccurate.

Importantly, Senator Durbin even admitted that not all the names reported to the VA are dangerous. Senator Durbin said: ``I do not dispute what the Senator from Iowa suggested, that some of these veterans may be suffering from a mental illness not serious enough to disqualify them from owning a firearm, but certainly many of them do.''

Then, Senator Durbin said: ``Let me just concede at the outset that reporting 174,000 names goes too far, but eliminating 174,000 names goes too far.'' I am glad that Senator Durbin acknowledged that many of the names on the gun ban list supplied by the VA do not pose a danger and should be removed.

But again, my amendment is not about purging names from the list. I would be happy to take him up on his offer to work with him on that problem. Surely, we can agree that, going forward, the VA should start affording due process to veterans before they are stripped of their Second Amendment rights. If you really want a solution to this problem, stop objecting to this amendment.

As I stated yesterday, my amendment does three things. First, it makes the ``danger to self or others'' standard applicable to the VA. We all agree that dangerous persons must not own or possess firearms. Second, it shifts the burden of proof from the veteran and back to the Government where it belongs. Third, it fixes the constitutional due process issues by removing the hearing from the VA to the judicial system.

The last thing I will note is something on which I wholeheartedly agree with Senator Durbin. Yesterday, he said: ``We need to find a reasonable way to identify those suffering from serious mental illness who would be a danger to themselves, their families or others, and to sort out those that don't fit in that category.''

As I have made clear, my amendment does exactly that. Why, then, are the Democrats refusing to fix this problem if they admit the problem exists? This is an outrage. We all know that veterans are being treated unfairly. My amendment fixes the problem, yet Democrats object.

What is dangerous is that Democrats are allowing veterans to be subjected to a process that casts their Second Amendment rights aside. All of this smells of hypocrisy. For months, the Democrats and their allies have been attacking me and the Republicans for not voting on the Supreme Court nominee. But the Democrats will not even allow a simple vote on protecting veterans' constitutional rights.

Can you imagine the chaos that would reign over this Chamber again if the Democrats were to take control over the Senate? I will continue to stand firm in defense of our veteran population. I will continue to fight to protect their constitutional rights from offensive and oppressive government outreach.

Our veterans are a special group. They give life and limb for our safety so that we can sleep in peace at night. The iron fist of government must submit to the constitutional rights of veterans, and those constitutional rights have been taken away by the VA willy-nilly just because somebody needs a fiduciary--nothing to do with the competence of that veteran to not be able to buy a gun.

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