Virginia’s new gun control plan isn’t about saving lives – it’s about controlling them.
By Larry Keane from NSSF – originally published here
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They’re telling us it’s about public safety, that Virginia must have strict California and New York-style gun control to make our communities safer.
Do not believe them. The mask is off. It was never about public safety. It was never about safer communities. Gov. Ralph Northam and his fellow gun control Democrats pushing for dispossession of lawfully owned firearms aren’t doing this to make Virginia better. They’re doing this as a naked power grab.
Punish Police
The latest legislation pre-filed for the upcoming 2020 session is proof.
Democrat Delegate Lee Carter of Manassas sponsored HB 67, which would apply to any law enforcement official, noting that those who “willfully refuses to perform the duties of his employment,” will be terminated and ineligible for future law enforcement employment for another year.
The bill was filed just days after Gov. Ralph Northam warned against the more than 100 counties and municipalities that already adopted Second Amendment or Constitutional sanctuary resolutions.
Northam offered a veiled threat that any law enforcement agency that doesn’t get on board with enforcing his gun grab would see their funding or authority revoked.
“If we have constitutional laws on the books and law enforcement officers are not enforcing those laws on the books, then there are going to be consequences, but I’ll cross that bridge if and when we get to it,” Northam told reporters.
It all centers on the gun control Gov. Northam promised. He said if he could get the legislature to flip from a very narrowly held Republican lead in both the House of Delegates and state Senate to Democrat, he could force through draconian gun control.
Anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg dumped $2.5 million and the statehouse is now narrowly Democrat, with a 21 to 19 majority in the state Senate and 55 of 100 seats in the House of Delegates.
Turn Them In
That’s hardly landslide territory, but enough that Democratic State Sen. Richard L. Saslaw pre-filed SB 16, to prohibit the sale, transfer and possession of so-called “assault firearms” and certain standard magazines.
Violating the measure would be a state felony. That means to avoid running afoul of the law, law abiding citizens who currently own these firearms would need to get rid of them or surrender them to the government.
Gov. Northam tried to quell the uproar as sanctuary county resolutions passed county-by-county. His spokesperson said the governor would include a “grandfather clause” that includes a “requirement they register their weapons before the end of a designated grace period.”
No one could blame Virginians for not trusting the governor. Registering their legally owned firearms would give the state government a database of where they need to go to confiscate them later.
That’s not exactly conspiracy theory thinking.
Gov. Northam previously said outright confiscation was on the table when he told reporters in November, “That’s something I’m working [on] with our secretary of public safety.”
Electorate Speaks, Politicians Threaten
Now, the governor is scrambling. The electorate is up on arms, quite literally, and his gun control allies aren’t allaying fears. They’re stoking serious constitutional concerns.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring dismissed the legal standing of Second Amendment referendums, but in doing so dismissed the will of the people taking part in the democratic process and voicing displeasure with their government.
He downplayed the legislation as just simple background checks, but demanded:
“So, when Virginia passes these gun safety laws that they will be followed, they will be enforced.”
Democratic Congressman Donald McEachin wasn’t helping. He suggested Gov. Northam call out the Virginia National Guard to enforce the ill-received gun restrictions.
He somehow forgot two things. Cam Edwards of Bearing Arms noted that if Gov. Northam were to do it, he’d be the first sitting “governor to use the National Guard to prevent the exercise of a constitutional right since Orval Faubus called out the Guard in Arkansas to keep black students out of a Little Rock high school.”
He’d also be turning Virginians against their fellow citizens, many of whom, are undoubtedly gun owners, ironically carrying actual assault rifles to disarm owners of legally owned modern sporting rifles.
This push for gun control in the Old Dominion isn’t about making the Commonwealth safer.
The anti-gun rhetoric and attack on Constitutionally protected American rights are pushing Virginians to an untenable choice. Virginians are being forced to choose between exercising their rights and protecting themselves and their families or surrendering their freedoms at the end of a gun.
It’s ironic, for a state that has the motto of “Sic Semper Tyrannus,” or thus always to tyrants.
The new laws in Virginia are confusing, to say the least. So we broke it down for you.
We’ve been going to great lengths to document the ongoing efforts to restrict gun owner’s rights over in Virginia. Gun control advocates have been hard at work trying to push an array of new restrictions, including universal background checks, “assault weapons” bans and red flag laws that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others.
One of the greatest things to come from the Democrat elitists stirring the pot is that the lawful, gun owning population is waking up to what’s going on around them in their state.
Over 100 cities and counties within Virginia have declared themselves to be second amendment sanctuaries, so as not to infringe upon the rights endowed by the Constitution. We’ve seen the formation of militias that are intent on protecting their rights within the state as well, showing that the gun owning population aren’t standing idly by.
For those new to the topic, you might ask what all this noise is about.
Well, there’s two aspects of newly proposed legislation that are the most troublesome; red flag laws and the banning of assault weapons. In order to understand what an assault weapon ban in Virginia would look like, you’d need to understand what the state defines as an “assault weapon”.
The state defines an assault weapon as such:
“A semi-automatic, centerfire, firearm equipped with a folding stock, or equipped at the time with a magazine capable of holding more than 20 rounds, or capable of accommodating a silencer/suppressor.”
When most people think of assault weapons, an image comes to mind of an 80’s action hero movie where someone is mowing down an enemy army single handedly with a machine gun.
Yet, if you look at the language present in what the state defines as an assault weapon, a 9mm Beretta 92 toting the MEC-GAR 20 round magazine would be an assault weapon by definition. That type of gun is a pretty standard model of hand gun, where one pull of the trigger equals one bullet coming out, which that type of gun is also a “semi-automatic”.
Politicians and activists love using the word semi-automatic, since to the untrained ear it resonates as “automatic”; which then likens an image of a machine gun.
This assault weapons ban would also allow guns that have a folding stock to be confiscated, no matter if the firearm’s magazine hosts less than 20 bullets.
For those that have no clue as to what a folding stock is at the end of the day, it does absolutely zero to increase or decrease what a firearm can discharge. A gun with a folding stock is designed somewhat like a traditional wood stock rifle, the difference being that you can fold it up for compact storage purposes, that’s it.
Heaven forbid a lawful gun owner wants more space in their closet.
Now here’s the ringer on assault weapons bans: “capable of accommodating a silencer/suppressor”.
There are several makes and models of fairly standard and popular handguns that can accommodate a silencer. If enacted, owners of Smith & Wesson M&P Threaded Kits, Beretta M9A3s, 9mm and .45 ACP Springfield Armory XDMs, and pretty much any Glock or Sig Sauer handgun.
These laws coming down the pipe are aimed at convincing residents of the state into support that are completely oblivious as to how Virginia defines assault weapons. While the non-firearm enthusiasts think they’re gunning to take down machine guns, they’re really trying to get rid over every lawfully owned gun.
While the assault weapons ban will work to achieve getting most guns out of law-abiding citizens hands, legislators have red flag laws right around the corner to sweep up those other pesky firearms that don’t meet the threshold of “assault weapon”.
Essentially, all that is needed to have a weapon confiscated under red flag laws is one single person’s opinion about another. What that means is that someone, in fact, anyone can make a claim that someone is a danger to themselves or others, and then people with guns come to take your guns.
There’s no simpler way to explain it; and other states outside Virginia have already adopted these vary laws that have weaponized someone’s opinion about someone else.
While we at Law Enforcement Today are well aware that most of our readers our firearm savvy to some degree, we’d ask that you share this article with those not too hip to what these newly proposed laws actually mean and how they impact average, law-abiding gun owners.
You might be asking… well just who exactly is going to enforce these new laws? Cops in the area are wondering the same thing.
They’re well aware that massive numbers of police officers, veterans and other residents are so adamantly opposed to their sweeping gun control legislation that they’re fighting back.
But Virginia officials want the “peasants” to know they don’t give a damn.
In a four page opinion, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring stated that localities who have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries (and there are a lot) have “no legal effect.” He went on to say:
“When the General Assembly passes new gun safety laws, they will be enforced, and they will be followed. These [Second Amendment Sanctuary] resolutions have no legal force, and they’re just part of an effort by the gun lobby to stoke fear.”
In case you’ve been completely off grid and out of touch for the past few weeks, let me catch you up on what’s going on in the State of Virginia.
In essence, Democrats are attempting to pass gun control laws that would strip the state of their second amendment rights to bear arms. And patriots are preparing to fight back.
Literally.
Several gun control bills have been introduced in Virginia and gun owners in the state fear for the outcome when democrats take over both houses of the General Assembly in January 2020.
Over one-hundred local governments in the state have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuary locations, including eighty-six out of ninety-five counties, and at least fifteen local city or town governments. Additionally, citizens in many of those Sanctuaries have begun forming militias standing ready to fight for their rights.
In Culpeper County, Sheriff Scott Jenkins made a public statement that he would “screen and deputize thousands of law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms.”
Sheriff Jenkins thanked the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors for declaring their intention to defend their rights. Further, he said:
“Every Sheriff and Commonwealth Attorney in Virginia will see the consequences if our General Assembly passes further unnecessary gun restrictions.
America has more guns than citizens and murder has long been illegal. At best, the proposed gun restrictions will disarm or handicap our law-abiding in their defense and possibly cause a criminal to choose another tool for evil.”
The Sheriff’s statements as well as reports of militias rising in numbers prompted democratic Representative Donald McEachin to encourage Democrat (sensing a pattern here…) Governor Ralph Northam to activate the National Guard to enforce these laws. Rep McEachin said:
“I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law. That’s his call, because I don’t know how serious these counties are and how severe the violations of law will be. But that’s obviously an option he has.”
Law Enforcement Today received many military member responses to this threat, saying they, too, would not enforce these proposed unconstitutional laws. It boils down to this: Politicians insisting on law enforcement and military to strip people of their rights for political gain are asking for civil war.
Which is interesting because Delegate Jay Jones (shockingly, democratic) wrote this:
“The bills passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by the Governor are binding for our entire Commonwealth and its citizens.
The legal precedent we would set by allowing communities to selectively ignore those laws at will is alarming and indicative of the same mindset that nearly one hundred and fifty years ago led this country to dissolve into a civil war.”
’m not even going to get into the absurdity of his statements; I’ll just focus on the fact that Virginia Democrats clearly recognize this very real threat of another civil war, right in their state, and yet they press on with trying to take away the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Original Article just type www. and copy and paste the link in your browser:
lawenforcementtoday.com/virginias-new-gun-control-plan-isnt-about-saving-lives-its-about-controlling-them/
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