"Mentally Impaired" Recipients of Social Security?

Unless I read this wrong, the authors of this article consider that anyone who willing accepts a firearm in his/her home (let along WILLFULLY DESIRING to own a firearm) ... must be crazy.


NRA and Republicans find unlikely ally on rollback of gun control rule: science | US news | The Guardian:

For once, science is on the side of the National Rifle Association and Donald Trump, according to prominent experts on mental health and violence. 

(Reluctantly stated?)

 A cohort of researchers and civil rights advocates say congressional Republicans were right to roll back an Obama-era rule that would have barred certain mentally impaired recipients of social security benefits from owning guns. The Obama rule “is fundamentally not a rational policy”, said Paul Appelbaum, a psychiatrist who directs the law, ethics and psychiatry division at Columbia University. “It’s not a rule that would be very likely to make us safer.”

The "Obama-era rule" cited, but not defined, is that a retired person ("recipient of social security benefits") who chooses to have a third-party negotiate his/her retirement benefits package under the American Social Security Laws",  may (should?) be arbitrarily defined as "Mentally Defective" .

("Lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his or her own affairs.")

The policy, finalized in the last weeks of the Obama administration, would have disqualified from gun ownership an estimated 75,000 people who have mental illnesses or disabilities and are assigned a representative to manage their social security benefits. The people targeted by the rule “are not a particularly high-risk group for violent behavior”, Appelbaum said.

First Point:  These people are usually those who have sufficient mental capacity to decide (for their own reasons!) that they choose not to manage their own benefits package negotiations.   Which is not unreasonable, because the federal rules are sometimes contradictory and often obtuse.   It seems only reasonable that individuals may decide to appoint a judiciary arbitrator ... and it's constitutionally supported.

Second Point:  Why in the WORLD would the Social Security Administration make such an arbitrary ruling, entirely unsupported by other rules of law (or the Constitution!) which effects only retirees?

Third Point:  If a person is sufficiently 'in his right mind' to appoint a designee (much akin to an "Attorney of Record" or a "Trustee"), why would that appointment be an ipso facto argument that the person is incapable of handling his/her own legal affairs?

It seems reasonable to assume that the SSA is voluntarily accepting the general Rule of Federal Government, which is to deem anyone who applies for Federal benefits as a total fucking loser and may safely be treated with disdain, if not disrespect.  (That also includes the collateral assumption that the person in question is not a present or past Federal Employee, which of course automatically elevates said person to the Intelligentsia!)

This leads directly to the argument that anyone who trusts his government deserves exactly that he gets ... which is at best "poor service" and a least disdain, insult, embarrassment and intimidation.

That's what Government is good for, and nothing better.

Trust me: I was a Federal Employee for two years; the only redeeming factor for my service was that the people I "serviced" were entitled to shoot back at me.   And they did .. if poorly, with great enthusiasm!

I never really blamed them for that; it seemed like a reasonable response then, and it still does.