Senate votes to repeal Obama-era gun regulation

WASHINGTON — An Obama-era rule requiring the federal government to provide information about the mentally ill to a national background check system to prevent them from purchasing guns was abolished by the Senate on Wednesday.

A 57-43 vote to roll back the rule is considered the first clash by Republicans and Democratsin the Senate on gun control during the Trump administration.

Nevada’s two U.S. Sens., Dean Heller, a Republican, and Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, split along party lines.

The Senate vote followed an earlier vote by the House rolling back a regulation that was enacted to prevent another tragedy like the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut where grade schoolers and teachers were shot and killed by Adam Lanza, 20, who was mentally impaired.

The 235-180 House vote earlier this year was largely along party lines.

U.S. Reps. Dina Titus, Ruben Kihuen and Jacky Rosen, all Nevada Democrats, voted against repeal. U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., voted for repeal.

Senate action now sends the legislation to the White House where Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.

Specifically, the regulation repealed required the Social Security Administration to submit information about mentally impaired recipients to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) administered by the FBI.

The NICS includes the names of felons and those committed to mental institutions who are prohibited from owning guns of any kind.

The new rule,issued by the Social Security Administration in December, was expected to expand the list of those prohibited from purchasing weapons by about 75,000.

The National Rifle Association immediately sought congressional help in repealing the order. Gun violence groups like The Brady Campaign, named after former White House Press Secretary James Brady who was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, fought the repeal.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the regulation issued by the Obama administration was too vague. He said that the government should be forced to prove an individual was a violent threat before being included on the list.

He said it unfairly stigmatized the mentally disabled.

But Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said it was outrageous that with national security the top issue, “the GOP would pass a bill to weaken the FBI’s firearms and explosives background-check system.”

In a statement, Heller said: “The Second Amendment should not be denied to law-abiding citizens without due process of law. Former President Obama’s Social Security Administration’s regulation is a flawed policy that infringes on the constitutional rights of many Nevadans and needed to be repealed.”

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.