In 2022, I wrote one of the most important pieces I’ve ever written. It was about how the FBI had pressured some Americans to sign away their right to keep and bear arms. Basically, what would happen is the FBI would show up to someone’s house, tell them that they were being investigated for something like threats made in a chatroom, and then say that it can all go away if they sign this form that puts them in the NICS system as prohibited.
Now, keep in mind that these people have been convicted of no crime at all, and also keep in mind that there’s no legal mechanism for someone to voluntarily place themselves in the NICS database on a permanent basis like this.
To say I was bothered by this was to put it far too mildly.
A lot of you were, too.
Well, the Gun Owners of America did a lot of work, which is what brought this to my attention back then and they haven’t let it lie.
Gun Owners of America just caught the FBI coercing more people into giving up their Second Amendment rights!
Thanks to a FOIA request by GOA’s lawyers, we uncovered even more evidence on the FBI’s unconstitutional and unlawful NICS Indices program.
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GOA published our initial findings that the FBI had provided these forms to agents for use on American gun owners, who were pressured into signing and therefore “voluntarily” relinquished their rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms.
These FOIA records painted a vivid picture of FBI agents showing up to people’s homes, place of work, etc., presenting to them these forms, and “asking” them to declare themselves to be a “danger” to themselves or others, or lacking the “mental capacity to adequately contract or manage” their lives.
You can imagine how coercive these sorts of FBI visits must have been. The FBI’s use of this secret form has occurred during recent years when the bureau has become increasingly politicized and weaponized against Americans, including gun owners.
Here’s what our attorney, Rob Olson, had to say at the time:
“We’re into a pre-crime, Minority Report type of world where the FBI believes it can take constitutional rights away from anyone it thinks possibly might pose a threat in the future, which certainly is not something you expect in the United States.”
The FBI claimed to have stopped use of this form in 2019 – right after GOA first reported the form’s existence.
After our findings went public in 2022, we called on Congress to investigate the FBI’s use of this unlawful form.
Well, thanks to our reporting, Congress did start to look into the matter.
That they did.
I don’t know that the FBI actually stopped using them in 2019 as they claimed, but the truth is that it never should have happened. GOA even uncovered a PowerPoint presentation that is a training on how to use these NICS Indices Self-Submission forms, which explicitly says the reason for these forms is to, “Leverage these partnerships to assist with the NICS self-submission and prohibited user forms. These forms reduce the ability of those with a history of substance-abuse, or those that have not been adjudicated as a mental defective- from purchasing firearms.”
Here’s one of the great ironies of this report, though:
Incredibly, the FBI’s secret form asks the bureau’s victims to certify that they “lack mental capacity adequately to contract or manage the details of [their] life,” while simultaneously requiring “verification” by a “physician or mental-health professional” that the individual nevertheless “has adequate mental capacity voluntarily to execute this document.”
In other words, the form claims that individuals can have enough mental capacity to sign their rights away, but not enough capacity to have those rights in the first place.
Right?
Let’s understand that it’s difficult for me to accept that anyone signed this form voluntarily, as some in the FBI allege. When armed agents show up and suggest that if you sign this one simple form, you won’t face prosecution for some smack talk you delivered on the internet, it’s going to be difficult for a lot of people to say no to that. A trial is expensive and the outcome isn’t certain, especially since making a terroristic threat is, in fact, a crime.
A lot of people aren’t choosing to sign this form because they really don’t feel they can be trusted with their Second Amendment rights. They’re signing it because they’re terrified of going to prison and if this is what they have to do to remain free, they’ll do it.
This is intimidation, plain and simple.
Again, the FBI claims they stopped using the form in 2019, but that’s not enough. People were deprived of their gun rights illegally. GOA has some steps that FBI Director Kash Patel should take. They include guaranteeing the form is no longer in use, removing the records from the NICS database, informing those affected that their gun rights are intact, and ferreting out those responsible and holding them accountable.
I agree completely.
Here’s GOA’s video that covers this:
Read the full article here
