BY WESLEY P. HESTER

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., has introduced legislation designed to ensure that veterans and other Department of Veterans Affairs beneficiaries be afforded the same rights to purchase firearms as anyone else.

Currently, veterans who have a fiduciary appointed to act on their behalf are deemed “mentally defective” and reported to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. That leaves them ineligible to purchase firearms in the U.S.

Webb’s legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC, would require a judicial authority to determine that beneficiaries pose a danger to themselves or others before adding them to the background check system.

“As a matter of fairness, a veteran should be permitted to purchase a firearm under the same conditions as every other American,” Webb said. “This bipartisan bill ensures consistent guidelines are used for reporting citizens to the FBI, and that no veteran is needlessly stripped of their Second Amendment rights.”