It may be a recent posting on the forum cited in the OP, but that chain email story relating "here's what I found at the doc's office" has been around for quite awhile.
Even if asked
as part of an overall MH assessment, where the totality of circumstances dictates, VA or medical providers can't release that info unless the person has been
adjudicated incompetent or a threat to themselves or others.
Our local gendarmes are still using clear VHF and I hear many times a dispatcher request a local squad or deputy do a welfare check at the behest of the VA, on behalf of someone who's expressed concern to someone at the VA. I have never heard the info proferred that "VA advises subject is believed to have weapons in the house" or not.
(People isolate sometimes & have other problems. The other side of the coin, knowing many of the vets in town, quite often said vet is simply chilling out trying to get some quiet time away from the busy body who called the VA in the first place...)
[Firearms ownership bunny trail] I still get a kick out of Fred Thompson addressing the NRA "Bishop's Council" the last time he was a candidate. You know, where all the candidates come out & say the right things about growing up with .22's, or yeah, they pheasant hunt every year with Dick Cheney...
Fred was short & sweet: "I own alot of guns. I'm not going to tell you what kind, how many, or where they are. It's frankly nobody's business."
Next question.
[/bunny trail]