EDITORIAL: Social Security showdown
The next front in the gun-control war has been declared, and it might come as a surprise to millions of people who collect Social Security.
As reported Saturday by the Los Angeles Times' Alan Zarembo, the Obama administration is pushing to ban Social Security beneficiaries from owning guns if they lack the mental capacity to manage their own affairs, a move that could affect millions whose monthly disability payments are handled by others. Mr. Zarembo noted the push is intended to bring the Social Security Administration in line with laws regulating who gets reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is used to prevent gun sales to felons, drug addicts, immigrants in the country illegally and others.
Jazz Shaw, writing for the conservative blog HotAir.com, clarifies: "So the basic assumption here is that if you are a Social Security recipient (read: an old person) and someone else handles the receipt and disbursement of your benefits, then you must be ... what? Incompetent?" Mr. Shaw rightly noted that the measure is a sweeping blanket classification and a suspension of constitutional rights, in yet another effort to confiscate guns from law-abiding owners.
It's a ridiculous push by the administration, which is hardly in a position to question the financial faculties of anybody, as it's helped push the national debt from $10.6 trillion to more than $18 trillion in the last 6½ years. This is a far-overreaching proposal, and the administration should back off.
