H.R. 496 — Veterans 2nd Amendment Restoration Act of 2025

This section directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, within 30 days of enactment and in accordance with 34 U.S.C. §40901(e)(1)(D), to notify the Attorney General that the basis for transmitting personally identifiable information—on or after November 30, 1993, solely due to a determination to pay benefits to a fiduciary under 38 U.S.C. §5502—to the Department of Justice for use by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was improper, does not apply, or no longer applies. (As background, such transmittals have prohibited those beneficiaries from purchasing or possessing firearms; thus, this notification enables their removal from the NICS denial database.)

This section provides that, for purposes of 18 U.S.C. 922, a person is not treated as adjudicated a mental defective solely because the Secretary of Veterans Affairs determined the person (1) is mentally incompetent under 38 C.F.R. § 3.353 (or successor regulation) or (2) requires a fiduciary under 38 U.S.C. § 5502. (Thus, such determinations do not trigger federal firearms prohibitions under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4).)