The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced new steps on Wednesday aimed at protecting and restoring the Second Amendment rights of American veterans, prompting praise from Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona.
In a reversal of a decades-long policy, the VA will no longer report veterans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System as “prohibited persons” solely because they have a fiduciary managing their VA benefits.
The department confirmed the nearly 30-year procedure violated both the Gun Control Act and veterans’ constitutional protections because no judicial or quasi-judicial determination was made before the reports were submitted.
The directive restores Second Amendment rights to thousands of veterans who were previously unable to exercise them under the policy. VA leadership said the agency is working with the FBI to remove all past VA-initiated NICS entries tied exclusively to fiduciary appointments.
Crane, a Republican who represents Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, has sought to end the practice for several years. In the 118th Congress, he introduced H.R. 9053 and H.R. 9054 to nullify prior VA submissions to NICS and prohibit the VA from participating in state-level gun confiscation proceedings. He has reintroduced the reforms this Congress as H.R. 496.
During the fiscal year 2025 appropriations process, Crane passed an amendment to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Bill clarifying that any veteran reported to NICS by a VA fiduciary was done unlawfully and requiring the VA secretary to direct the U.S. attorney general to remove those names. The legislation later stalled in the U.S. Senate.
Following the VA’s announcement, Crane called the move a correction of a long-standing injustice and urged Congress to codify the directive.
“For nearly three decades, unelected bureaucrats violated the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands of our nation’s heroes. If the federal government is willing to strip fundamental liberties from those who served in uniform, there’s no telling where they will draw the line,” Crane said. “I’m grateful to President Trump and Secretary Collins for correcting this injustice and protecting the freedoms that our veterans fought to defend. Congress must now codify this directive so no future administration can reimplement this disgraceful protocol.”
