July 27, 2023 · House · RC 380

Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations, FY2024 (VA background-check rider)

House Bill, H.R. 4366 (House)

What it did

For decades the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reported the names of veterans found mentally incapable of managing their own finances to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), because a veteran in that condition who buys a firearm is at acute risk of suicide and of harm to the people around him, children included.

H.R. 4366, the fiscal year 2024 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs spending bill sponsored by Rep. John Carter (R-TX), carried a rider ending that practice unless a judge separately rules the veteran a danger. A yes vote funded veterans' hospitals and, in the same bill, reopened the gun counter to the veterans those hospitals were trying to keep alive.

A no vote rejected the rider along with the bill.

The House passed it 219-211 on July 27, 2023, and the rider became law through the Senate version later that year.

At the time of this vote, 6,407 veterans had died by suicide in the most recent year of VA data, and guns were the leading cause of death for American children and teens.

Result: Passed 219-211

At the time of this vote: 6,407 veteran suicides in 2022 (VA); firearms were used in 73% of veteran suicides in 2023; 2,526 US children aged 1 to 17 were killed by guns in 2022 (CDC data)

The humane vote: No (NAY)

Official roll-call record

Members in this record who voted inhumanely (175)

Members in this record who voted humanely (169)