The Department of Veterans Affairs has ended a practice that prevented veterans who can’t manage their finances from owning guns, a change officials say will restore constitutional rights to nearly 200,000 former service members.
The VA announced Tuesday it will immediately stop reporting veterans to the FBI’s national background check database if they need a fiduciary to help manage their benefits.
Proponents of the decades-old policy have said it protects veterans with mental impairments by limiting access to a lethal means of suicide. But major veteran advocacy groups and gun rights organizations have long argued the notifications weren’t based on thorough mental assessments and actually prevented veterans from seeking help for fear of losing their 2nd Amendment rights.
Since 2017, Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation to force the VA to stop the practice, including as recently as last year, with H.R. 496, the Veterans 2nd Amendment Restoration Act of 2025, sponsored by Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz.
But on Tuesday VA officials said that based on a legal review, the agency and the Department of Justice have determined the VA can simply halt the notifications.
According to the VA, the law states that to report a person to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a determination must be made by a judge or “quasi-judicial body.”
The VA and DOJ determined that the decision that a veteran needs a fiduciary “falls short of this legal standard,” and veterans were reported without a hearing or “adequate determinations that they posed a sufficient risk of danger to themselves and others.”
“Many Americans struggle with managing their finances, and Veterans’ Second Amendment rights shouldn’t be stripped just because they need help in this area. But for too long, Veterans who needed the services of a VA fiduciary were deprived of their right to bear arms,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a press release.
The Brady Act allows the Justice Department to collect information from federal agencies of anyone whose ownership or position of a firearm would violate federal law, including those who are a danger to themselves or others; who lack the mental capacity to contract or manage their own affairs; or have been found insane by a court or incompetent to stand trial.
In its review of the practice, the VA determined that it violated another law, the Gun Control Act, as well as the 2nd Amendment.
The VA halted the practice for six months in 2024 under legislation approved by Congress in a consolidated appropriations law, but it only applied to veterans who entered the fiduciary program from that year and was not retroactive.
The new change will affect veterans who have lost their access to a firearm as a result of needing a fiduciary and being reported to the database, which is used by dealers to perform background checks and determine who is eligible to own, possess or buy firearms. According to the announcement, the VA will work with the FBI to remove all past reporting.
The veterans community has been split on their support for the requirement, with organizations such as Blue Star Families, an advocacy group for active-duty military personnel and their dependents, supporting the status quo when it first came under debate in 2017.
Others, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, have lobbied for the change, saying the policy harmed veterans who need VA health care but were reluctant to seek it for fear of being referred to the database.
In 2023, the most recent year for data on veteran suicide, firearms were used in 73.3% of the 6,398 suicides recorded by the VA. On Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, noted that guns are used in a majority of veteran suicide and called the change “dangerous and reckless.”
Blumenthal refuted the VA’s claim that the referral process has been conducted by persons who lack the legal authority or capacity to make a judgement based on a fiduciary assignment, noting that the determinations were made “through a comprehensive process with robust due process protections.”
“This Administration should be focused on measures that will actually help end veteran suicide and make our communities safer. Eliminating this policy and weakening the NICS background check system altogether is a disastrous decision that will have potentially tragic impacts for years to come,” Blumenthal said.
But Committee Chairman Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said that in making the change, the VA had corrected a wrong, and he urged colleagues to support legislation to make the decision permanent.
“No veteran should be penalized or stripped of their right to legally purchase and own a firearm without due process simply because they sought assistance from VA regarding their finances or earned benefits,” Moran said.
Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.
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