FBI "NICS Indices Self-Submission Form" Campaign Discourages Gun Owners From Mental Health Care

The Gun Owners of America (GOA) has uncovered an FBI "NICS Indices Self-Submission Form" campaign which targets gun owners who seek mental health care.

The FBI has been actively pursuing precrime punishment of gun owners who seek mental health care since the Obama Administration.

The 1968 Gun Control Act prohibited any person who "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution" from purchasing or owning modern firearms. It very specifically did not impose this prohibition upon gun owners who seek mental health care on their own, such as veterans with PTSD or individuals going through a bout of depression. GCA '68 attempted to distinguish severe, incurable mental illness from transitory issues which routinely pass, with or without professional treatment.

Gun Owners of America filed a barrage of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to discover how widespread and intensive the FBI "NICS Indices Self-Submission Form" campaign has been. The documents they have received recently disclose a widespread pressure campaign to permanently strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights by pressuring them when they are most vulnerable.

This illegal FBI campaign discourages gun owners from seeking professional care for any transitory mental health conditions because they can never again own or use firearms after submitting this form:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/we-caught-fbi-using-minority-report-style-secret-form-pressuring-gun-owners-forfeit-their

1. We Caught FBI Using "Minority Report Style" Secret Form Pressuring Gun Owners To Forfeit Their Rights
   By Gun Owners of America - February 25, 2025

   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.

   In 2019, it was discovered that the FBI was using a document titled "NICS Indices Self-Submission Form" that purported to allow American citizens to "voluntarily" waive their Second Amendment rights.

   By completing this FBI form, law-abiding Americans allegedly "consent" for the FBI to enter their names into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, marking them as permanently prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition. And as the form warns, once an individual waives their rights, it's impossible to get them back.

   Now, the mere existence of this form was troubling, and it clearly violates the Second Amendment and even the Gun Control Act. But at that point, we weren't sure how extensively the FBI was using the form, if in fact it was being used at all.

   Fast-forward a few years to 2022.

   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.

   Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with 15 other members of Congress, sent a letter to the FBI demanding that it remove any records from any database relating to those who have signed these forms, remove the records from NICS, and finally confirm that the FBI has halted its use of this unlawful form.

   We have continued to press the FBI on this issue, and our continued work has uncovered more documents showing just how deep this FBI rabbit hole goes.

   Today, we've uncovered even more evidence that not only was the use of the FBI's secret form more widespread than it initially appeared but also that the FBI was training its field offices on how exactly to implement and effectively use the form in a Minority Report-style of dystopian justice.

   In fact, the bureau has now turned over a PowerPoint presentation used in a training on how to effectively use this self-submission form.

   But it gets worse.

   The PowerPoint originates from an email that was sent to nearly every FBI field office nationwide. Here's what the email says:

   "Good afternoon everyone,

   I … wanted to pass along something that we started doing to keep guns out of the hands of individuals with mental health and/or substance abuse problems. In addition to conducting joint interviews ... we are also using the NICS Forms when appropriate."

   Attached … are the NICS self-submission forms, and this PowerPoint detailing training from the FBI's Boston field office.

   The training looks to encourage FBI agents to leverage … local mental health crisis intervention teams to find individuals with "acute mental health disorders."

   The PowerPoint then specifically addresses the form by instructing FBI agents 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."

   Who gave the FBI the unilateral authority to decide which Americans should keep their Second Amendment rights?

   GOA has also uncovered emails showing FBI agents congratulating each other on successfully coercing a "subject" sign the form.

   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.

   Apparently, irony was not part of the FBI's training on how to violate Second Amendment rights.

   So, what can be done about this?

   Well, a whole lot, actually.

   With Republicans in control of Congress, and a Constitutionalist like Kash Patel soon to be in charge of the FBI, we're hopeful that GOA's new discoveries can help bring this story back to the attention of those in power.

   Congress, and those in the executive branch, can act upon this information to:

   1.  ensure and guarantee that the NICS Indices Self-Submission Form is no longer being used by FBI agents to unconstitutionally disarm Americans;
   2.  disclose all records of this nefarious program to the public;
   3.  identify and track down each person who has been coerced into signing one of these forms, and notify the person that they are not prohibited from purchasing, possessing, or using firearms or ammunition;
   4.  identify all entries that have been made in the NICS Indices on this basis, and take immediate steps to permanently eradicate such entries; and, finally,
   5.  hold accountable those within the FBI responsible for creating and promulgating this unlawful and unconstitutional form.

   With Kash Patel heading up the FBI, we're hopeful that tyrannical actions like the NICS self-submission form are a thing of the past from the FBI.