Forget Gun Free Zones, Virginia Gun Controllers Want Ammunition Free Zones, Millions in Tax $$$ to Ban Guns and Jail Gun Owners! NRA/ ILA
Forget Gun Free Zones, Virginia Gun Controllers Want Ammunition Free Zones, Millions in Tax $$$ to Ban Guns and Jail Gun Owners! NRA/ ILA
6 Jan 2020 Virginia Gov. Northam Wants Millions in Tax Money to Ban Guns and Jail Gun Owners!
In recent weeks NRA-ILA informed Virginia gun owners about gun control funding included in the state budget bill. The budget legislation, HB30, included a $250,000 appropriation to the Corrections Special Reserve Fund in order to provide for the “increase in the operating cost of adult correctional facilities resulting from the enactment” of Governor Ralph Northam and the Michael Bloomberg-bought General Assembly’s gun control measures. In other words, $250,000 of taxpayer money that will be used to lock up gun owners who don’t comply with Northam and Bloomberg’s unconstitutional gun laws.
News of the quarter of a million dollar appropriation justly sparked a firestorm in the pro-gun community. However, additional budget documents from the Northam administration reveal that the problem is an order of magnitude worse than previously reported.
Nestled away in the “2020 Executive Budget Document” is millions of dollars in appropriations to fund, and hire government officials to carry out, Northam’s attack on law-abiding gun owners.
The section concerning the Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security contains the following two appropriations:
Northam has proposed more than $4 million dollars to fund a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms. More disturbing, the budget would authorize 18 government functionaries to carry out compliance with the ban.
It is not clear from the document what the precise function of these 18 government collaborators would be. However, the introduced semi-automatic ban legislation (SB16) would effectively confiscate commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms from law-abiding citizens, as it outlaws the continued possession of such firearms. After supporting similar confiscatory legislation in the gun control special session in July, Northam has said that he now contemplates a semi-automatic ban that would purportedly grandfather currently possessed firearms if the owners of such guns register the firearms with the government. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to speculate that the 18 new government positions would be used to confiscate or register commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.
Northam has also included another $3.6 million in the state budget to carry out a host of other gun control measures.
Such legislation includes the criminalization of private firearms transfers. Under the proposed HB2 “background check” bill, Virginians would be required to seek government permission to gift, trade, and even temporarily lend firearms to close friends and extended family. Under this extreme bill, even lending a brother a rifle for a deer hunt or letting a daughter borrow a handgun for self-defense could land an otherwise law-abiding Virginian a felony conviction and up to 5 years in jail.
The proposed budget also points to funding “one gun purchase per month” legislation. From 1993 to 2012 Virginia had a “one-handgun-a-month” law that rationed the number of handguns law-abiding gun owners could purchase. The language in the budget document appears to indicate that Northam and the Bloomberg-bought General Assembly intends to extend this failed gun rationing scheme to all firearms sales.
Despite appearing in the state budget under the section for the Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security, these gun control measures have nothing to do with safety or security.
In additional to being unconstitutional, a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms will not reduce violent crime.
Long guns of any description are rarely used in violent crime. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data breaks down homicides by weapon type. In 2018, the FBI reported that there were five times as many individuals listed as killed with “knives or cutting instruments,” than with rifles of any kind. The data also showed that rifles were listed as being used in less homicides than “blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)” or “personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.).”
A 1997 Department of Justice-funded study of the 1994 federal “assault weapons” ban determined that “At best, the assault weapons ban can have only a limited effect on total gun murders, because the banned weapons and magazines were never involved in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders.” A 2004 follow-up Department of Justice-funded study came to a similar conclusion. The study determined that “AWs [assault weapons] and LCMs [large capacity magazines] were used in only a minority of gun crimes prior to the 1994 federal ban,” “relatively few attacks involve more than 10 shots fired,” and “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”
So-called “universal” background checks do not stop criminals from obtaining firearms.
Background checks don’t stop criminals from stealing firearms, getting them on the black market, or getting them from straw purchasers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 75 percent of criminals in state and federal state prison who had possessed a firearm during their offense acquired the firearm through theft, “Off the street/underground market,” or “from a family member or friend, or as a gift.” Less than one percent got firearms from dealers or non-dealers at gun shows. ATF has reported, “[t]he most frequent type of trafficking channel identified in ATF investigations is straw purchasing from federally licensed firearms dealers.”
This year, researchers at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the UC Davis School of Medicine found that comprehensive background checks and prohibitions based on violent misdemeanors “were not associated with changes in firearm suicide or homicide.”
Regarding gun rationing, there has not been a detrimental effect since the “one-handgun-a-month” law was repealed in 2012. In 1993, Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and other gun control advocates sold the handgun rationing measure as a way to curb gun trafficking from Virginia to more restrictive Northeast states, particularly New York.
According to ATF trace data, there was not an increase in firearms recovered in New York being traced to Virginia in the years after repeal. In the three years prior to repeal (2009-11), a total of 1265 firearms recovered in New York were traced to Virginia. In the three years following repeal (2013-15), a total of 1259 firearms recovered in New York were traced to Virginia.
Tax-paying Virginians should not have to fund Northam and Bloomberg’s radical attack on their fundamental rights. Please contact Gov. Northam and let him know you oppose his unconstitutional gun control measures. You can contact Northam using the Governor’s Office contact form or call his office at 804-786-2211.
Stay tuned to www.nraila.org for updates. And, in the meantime, please sign up to volunteer to help defeat Northam and Bloomberg’s gun control legislation.
Background NRA/ILA
Virginia: First Weeks of January are Critical 30 Dec 2019 Law-abiding gun owners throughout the Commonwealth must continue to join together to fight against gun bans, gun rationing, and confiscation this January in Richmond. Your NRA has events planned for the early, critical days of the 2020 legislative session.
The first hearing of the Senate Courts of Justice Committee is January 13th, where lawmakers could hear the first slate of bills to restrict our freedom into oblivion. It’s critical that law-abiding gun owners are heard on this day, because waiting even one week to make our voices heard, whether individually or at an organized event, will simply be too late. Anti-gun zealot Gov. Northam wants the entire package of gun control bills fast-tracked for passage in the first week of this brief session. We must defend freedom at the very first hearing on the 13th and show the new bought and paid for anti-gun majority that our rights are not for sale – to Bloomberg or anyone else. J
6 Jan There is no such thing as a gun free zone. A person intent on criminal violence will not be deterred from bringing a gun to a location because of a “no guns” sign or an anti-gun statute. The only consequence of such measures is to ensure law-abiding citizens are disarmed and vulnerable. As demonstrated by Texas churchgoer Jack Wilson and the other armed congregants of West Freeway Church of Christ, allowing law-abiding citizens to carry for the defense of themselves and others can prevent harm.
As counterproductive as gun free zones are, Virginia’s Michael Bloomberg-bought General Assembly wants to go even further.
Under VA Code Ann. § 18.2-308.1, the Old Dominion already prohibits firearms on “the property of any public, private or religious elementary, middle or high school, including buildings and grounds.” On December 31, Delegate Kaye Kory (D-38) filed HB318, which would make it a crime to knowingly possess ammunition at such locations. A violation of the ammunition ban would be a Class 1 Misdemeanor punishable by a $2,500 fine and up to a year imprisonment.
Gun owners know just how easy it would be to run afoul of this law. Many gun owners keep ammunition in their vehicles to facilitate quick trips to the range or for hunting. Other gun owners keep additional ammunition for their carry firearms in their vehicles for self-defense purposes.
As it exists, § 18.2-308.1 would seem to provide a small exemption to this prohibition for “a person who has a valid concealed handgun permit and possesses a concealed handgun while in a motor vehicle in a parking lot, traffic circle, or other means of vehicular ingress or egress to the school.” However, given the sloppy drafting, it is not clear if the exemption would only pertain to the concealed firearm or if it would pertain to the concealed firearm and its ammunition.
Moreover, current Virginia law exempts “a person who possesses an unloaded firearm that is in a closed container, or a knife having a metal blade, in or upon a motor vehicle, or an unloaded shotgun or rifle in a firearms rack in or upon a motor vehicle.” HB318 does not extend this exemption to include ammunition.
Therefore, under this legislation, a person who frequently uses their motor vehicle to hunt, shoot, or carry, would need to remove every piece of ammunition from their vehicle before parking and leaving the vehicle on school property, even if they are a concealed handgun permit holder.
Under the proposed legislation, it would not matter if a person was found with only one round of ammunition and it would not matter if the person had no way of utilizing the ammunition. The mere possession of a single round of ammunition by itself would be enough to trigger jailtime.
Gun free zones are senseless enough without expanding such mindless prohibitions to ammunition. Ammunition without a firearm to use it in does not pose a threat to anyone.
The irrational nature of HB318 further exposes the truth that the Bloomberg-bought General Assembly’s gun control agenda is not about public safety. Rather, bills like HB318 are about attacking gun owners and discouraging the exercise of Second Amendment rights by placing senseless restrictions on harmless conduct. This legislation is aimed at harassing law-abiding gun owners, not at keeping people safe.
Stay tuned to www.nraila.org for updates. And, in the meantime, please sign up to volunteer to help defeat Bloomberg’s gun control legislation.