Anti-gun lawmakers in Virginia, still celebrating a new Democrat governor, are wasting no time pushing dangerous anti-gun bills through the legislative process.
Bolstered by the recent swearing in of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat-led Senate Courts of Justice Committee on January 26 passed eight gun-control measures, most of which will now be considered by the Senate Finance Committee.
Perhaps the most egregious measure, Senate Bill 749 bans certain semi-automatic firearms, including many semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns, and arbitrarily limits magazine capacities.
“With the removal of the grandfather clause for magazines, anyone in possession of magazines that exceed the arbitrary limit will become a criminal overnight,” NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) wrote in a member alert. “This bill is an attempt to redefine and ban firearms that are in common use by law-abiding citizens—plain and simple gun confiscation by definition.”
Among the other anti-gun measures, SB 272 would limit who can carry firearms at public institutions of higher learning, SB 348 would create mandatory storage requirements, and SB 312 would prohibit carrying so-called “assault firearms” in public places, including streets, sidewalks and parks. As NRA-ILA pointed out, the vague definitions in the bill basically criminalize carrying any centerfire semi-automatic firearm in the commonwealth.
Other anti-gun measures passed by the committee include SB 323, which would ban the centuries-old practice of Virginians building their own firearms; SB 496, which places further restrictions on the ability of citizens to keep a firearm in their car for self-defense; and SB 115, which would jeopardize concealed handgun recognition and reciprocity agreements.
Philip Van Cleave, president of the gun rights group Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), was critical of the Democrat-passed measures currently on the move in the commonwealth, especially the bill banning so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines.
“While Democrats have bills to weaken laws on violent criminals, they like and support every bill that in any way infringes on the ability of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves,” Van Cleave said in an email to Virginiamercury.com. “For years Democrats said, ‘No one wants to take your guns, we just want reasonable gun control.’ They do want to take our guns away, and the committee reported out bills that do just that with the most popular long guns in America. There is only one reason that a government would want a disarmed population, and that’s to force their will upon that population.”
Unfortunately for Virginia gun owners, the lesson that “elections matter” is coming very quickly this time around. All of the measures on the move in the Senate are ones that would opposed by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and Gov. Youngkin even vetoed several of the measures last year.
Ironically, the one measure the committee killed was SB 78. That piece of legislation—the only “commonsense” bill under consideration—would have increased mandatory minimum sentences for repeat firearm offenses.
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