The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been under fire for years now for having become politicized and weaponized by the left. They launched a bogus investigation into the Russian collusion hoax, they stymied an investigation of Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings and laptop before the 2020 election, and last month they raided the home of Biden’s political opponent over an issue of presidential records.
According to a wealth of internal documents and communications obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the gun rights organization Gun Owners of America (GOA), the FBI secretly coerced Americans into signing documents that waive their rights to own, buy, or even use firearms — a blatant assault on their Second Amendment rights.
“The forms were presented by the FBI to people at their homes and in other undisclosed locations, according to bureau documents,” the Daily Caller reports. “At least 15 people between 2016 and 2019 signed the secret forms, which ask signatories to declare themselves as either a ‘danger’ to themselves or others or lacking ‘mental capacity adequately to contract or manage’ their lives.”
The form states that signatories woud be permanently registered with the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which would bar them from purchasing, possessing, or using firearms. It’s unclear how the FBI targeted signatories but according to investigation notes on some of the forms, many signatories allegedly made violent threats online, in person, and on social media.
John Harris, an attorney who heads the Tennessee Firearms Association, says the form’s inclusion of a space for a “physician or mental health professional” to affirm the signatory “has adequate mental capacity to voluntarily execute this document” is a major red flag.
“I don’t see how a licensed physician could ever competently sign the declaration that the person has the mental capacity to voluntarily execute the agreement but lacks the ‘mental capacity adequately to contract or manage the details of my life.’” Harris told the Daily Caller.
There is no record of when the form was created or when it started being used. However, in an email obtained by the FOIA request, an FBI agent reassured a coworker in November 2016 that the form had been “reviewed by legal counsel.” The agent reported that at least 10 people had signed the forms.
So, where did this form come from and why did the FBI start using it? Well, the intent of the form seems to be related to an Obama-era executive action on gun control, which required the Social Security Administration to report certain people receiving disability benefits to the FBI’s background check system, preventing them from owning, buying, or using firearms without any due process. Critics argued that the Obama rule would have included people who are not dangerously mentally ill, such as those with eating disorders or mental disorders that prevent them from managing their own finances, who would have been receiving SSA disability benefits. According to NPR, “Those who have been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs — roughly 75,000 people — would have been affected by the rule.”
Sure enough, the FBI agent revealed in the email thread that signed FBI forms were shared with “agencies who use these forms like Secret Service and Social Security.”
But the Obama rule, which was supposed to take effect in December 2017, was rolled back by Congress over civil liberties concerns. Why was the FBI using this form before the Obama rule took effect, and why did they continue to use it after the rule was axed? Obama’s executive action was always legally dubious, yet the FBI took it upon itself to achieve the goals of the nixed executive action.
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