Senate amendment barring VA reporting to the gun background-check system
House Bill, H.R. 4366 (Senate amendment)
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.
This Senate amendment to the fiscal year 2024 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill wrote the House rider into the Senate text: no VA report to NICS without a judicial finding of dangerousness. A yes vote adopted the amendment.
A no vote rejected it.
The Senate agreed to it 53-45 on October 25, 2023, and it was enacted in the final fiscal year 2024 spending package.
At the time of this vote, firearms accounted for about seven in ten veteran suicides.
Result: Agreed to 53-45
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)