The Veterans Administration is meant to help veterans with things like education, buying homes, and providing medical care after military service. In theory, it should be the veterans' best friend.

In reality, there are...issues.

With the healthcare the agency provides, a lot of vets joke that the VA gives you a second chance to die for your country, and it's not without reason. 

But that isn't the only sin the VA has committed.

We've covered the fact that the VA is inhibiting some vets from exercising their gun rights, reporting those who get fiduciaries--people who help them manage their money--and making them ineligible to exercise their gun rights despite no actual due process.

And to make it worse, officials claim they will not comply with legislation that would prevent that.

Last Wednesday, the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs of the House Veterans Affairs Committee held a legislative hearing on a number of proposed bills that would change various procedures and standards for how the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) does business. The VA, of course, is a creation of Congress, as are the statutes that empower, guide, and fund its activities.

Yet as is characteristic of many government agencies, the VA has formed its own agenda, born of deeply entrenched bureaucrats with their personal ideas about how government should operate. One glaring example of this is the department’s focus on gun control, a priority that is not only unrelated to its core mission but puts the VA at odds with many of the veterans its serves, who deeply value the right to keep and bear arms. In a stunning example of bureaucracy run amok, VA officials brazenly told incredulous members of Congress at Wednesday’s hearing the VA “could not” and “would not” comply with proposed legislation aimed at reining in this unauthorized mission. 

Now, there's a lot more over at the NRA-ILA piece, so you should go and read it. It provides a history of just how we got to this point in the first place.

However, I'm particularly alarmed by VA officials saying they "could not" and "would not" comply with laws passed by Congress. Saying they would not is one thing. They're wrong to do so, but at least it's an admission that this is a willful action they've decided to take. Claiming they cannot, however, is another matter entirely. That's basically saying they have no ability to, which is absolute nonsense.

Normally, people would be more worked about the "would not," and yeah, that's complete BS and heads should roll over that alone, but saying they cannot is an issue because it implies that the issue is out of their hands.

It's not.

There is literally no reason why they can't. They just don't want to and they want to make it out like such things are beyond them.

They also don't see how that's the case. 

Any authorization they have to strip veterans of their gun rights comes from Congress. If Congress says they have no such authority, then guess what? They have no authority to do any of that. This isn't rocket science. It's 7th-grade government.

If the VA insists that it won't, then what Congress should do is include penalties for officials who violate the law. I'd prefer criminal charges, of course, but even just firing them and making them ineligible to work for any federal agency going forward would probably be sufficient.

Put some teeth in the laws and watch these bureaucrats fold.

They don't get to strip people of their gun rights. They don't have that authority in the first place, but they most definitely don't have it if Congress specifically declares they don't. Especially if the president signs it.