BY Herschel Smith
2 weeks, 3 days ago
Source.
I deny the premise. There is no sanity from anyone on the left. However, one comment to the article says it all.
“VA Republican voters didn’t bother to vote. Numbers were down 30% over last year. Live with the misery. Don’t want to hear any whining, either. You did it to yourselves.”
I know the mantra. You can’t vote your way out of the mess. But you can sure vote your way into it if you’re lazy enough. And gun owners are just lazy enough to do that.
Or just not to show up to vote at all. That’s the same thing as voting for gun control.
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 10 months ago
Tenth Amendment Center.
Del. Bill Wiley (R) prefiled HB 1420 (HB1420) on Dec. 13. The legislation amends existing state law regarding prohibited concealed weapons to include the following:
For the sole purpose of carrying a concealed handgun, any person who carries a handgun anywhere he may lawfully carry a handgun openly within the Commonwealth and who is otherwise qualified under this article to obtain a concealed handgun permit. Such person shall not be required to meet the requirements of subsection B of § 18.2-308.02 or subsection B of § 18.2-308.06, as applicable, to carry a concealed handgun under this subdivision.
Currently, Virginia gun owners must apply to a city or county circuit court for a permit in order to conceal carry it in public under most circumstances.
Just like in my home state of North Carolina except it’s the CLEO who must approve. Furthermore, purchasing a handgun requires a permit from the CLEO (of course, a CHP suffices for the five years it’s valid). We’re an oddball state I must say. I can’t recall the last time the voters handed the legislature to democrats, if ever since I’ve lived here.
But the legislature has to fight the governor’s mansion for just about everything. I’m not sure of the makeup of the Virginia legislature, but I’d like to see them move forward while Youngkin is governor of the state.
If I have any readers in Virginia, please keep us posted on progress, and if possible, supply me with the email address of Mr. Wiley so I can stay in touch with him on this issue.
Prior: Virginia lawmakers could consider repeal of state gun laws
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 10 months ago
Recall that previous jerk in the Governor’s mansion in Virginia? Yea, him. Well, they may undo some of the bad he did in Virginia, and I expect Youngkin to sign such a bill if it can pass through the legislature.
House Bill 1428, pre-filed by Republican Del. Dave LaRock and state Sens. Amanda Chase and Frank M. Ruff, seeks to repeal an existing Virginia law that makes it unlawful for individuals to carry certain loaded semi-automatic center-fire rifles, pistols or shotguns on public streets, roads, alleys, sidewalks, public right-of-ways, public parks or “any other place of whatever nature that is open to the public” in certain parts of the state.
The existing law applies to the cities of Alexandria, Chesapeake, Fairfax, Falls Church, Newport News, Norfolk, Richmond and Virginia Beach and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Henrico, Loudoun and Prince William. The provisions in the law do not apply to law enforcement officers and licensed security guards, people with a valid concealed handgun permit or those engaged in lawful hunting or recreational shooting at established ranges.
LaRock also pre-filed House Bill 1427 earlier this month, which would remove a locality’s authority to prohibit the possession or carrying firearms in public parks and community centers owned by the locality, as well as public streets, alleys and sidewalks.
I’m glad I found this out – occasionally I’m in Virginia and thought that open carry was legal. But yea, I can’t imagine the people in Prince William being okay with open carry. Maybe if Virginia repeals this stupidity, it will be easier on open carriers as well as folks who don’t want to run afoul of the law depending on where they can’t carry.
BY PGF
3 years, 1 month ago
Source:
Hundreds of Virginians have had their guns confiscated from them through red-flag laws since those rules went into effect more than two years ago, according to data in the Virginia Firearms Transaction Center.
Red-flag laws allow police to seize firearms from a person if a judge deems him or her to be a threat to himself or others, even if that person has not been convicted of a crime, charged with a crime or even accused of a crime.
Virginia judges have issued at least 327 emergency substantial risk protection orders, which allow police to temporarily confiscate firearms to address an immediate risk. Judges have issued 257 permanent substantial risk protection orders, which confiscate the guns permanently, unless overturned through the court system. The data runs from July 1, 2020, when the law went into effect, through August 2022. The data does not state how many guns were confiscated from the individuals.
“Red Flag laws are an invention of the gun-control crowd and are unconstitutional due to their usurpation of Due Process,” Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, told The Center Square.
Trump is part of the “gun-control crowd,” it would seem
Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, told The Center Square that these laws are contrary to due process protections.
“Red Flag gun confiscation orders turn our legal system on its head,” Pratt said. “For centuries, the standard has been ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ But Red Flag laws reverse that standard into ‘guilty until proven innocent,’ because they throw real Due Process out the window – revoking someone’s Second Amendment rights without a jury trial or right to counsel. Not surprisingly, at least a third of red flag orders are initiated against innocent people – and the guns which are erroneously confiscated can take up to nine months to return. These laws have even been used to disarm women – such as the case in California where a cheating husband used the state’s red flag law to disarm his wife, who was a concealed carrier.”
Well, they’re all innocent until proven guilty. Is Pratt talking in circles?
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 11 months ago
News from Virginia.
Gun stores — usually busy at Christmas and always during tumultuous times — are squeezing in a different category of customer this year: Folks on either end of a private deal.
For the first Yuletide ever, a new law makes it illegal for Virginians to sell their personally owned firearms without buyers clearing the kind of background checks that can only be handled by federally licensed dealers.
Gifts — the genuine kind with zero money, goods or services swapped — are exempt.
Otherwise, both parties must enlist a dealer for a criminal history check run through the Virginia State Police, with the state capping the dealer’s service fee at $15.
There’s no shortage of grumbling in the new line at Bob’s Gun Shop in Norfolk, but “people are complying because that’s what law-abiding people do,” said owner Robert Marcus. “But they don’t see it addressing any crime issues.”
Mandatory universal background checks, bitterly fought about for years in the commonwealth, were part of a handful of new firearms restrictions that kicked in July 1, aimed at reducing gun violence.
The aim wasn’t to reduce anything except liberty.
Before that, background checks were only required with direct purchases from professional dealers. Private sellers, including regulars hawking at gun shows, weren’t obligated to verify that the people buying their guns were legally allowed to have them.
Now — while some exceptions exist — skipping the background check is a Class 1 misdemeanor for sellers and buyers, fetching a fine as high as $2,500 and even a year in jail.
[ … ]
Van Cleave said the requirement is not just “inconvenient,” but has “goofed up a lot of sales” because the VSP’s backgrounding process — known as a VCheck — can get clogged.
“I know people who’ve driven an hour or two to get to a dealer and then found the system is delayed,” he said. “They’re told to come back tomorrow or the next day, and everyone can’t always do that.”
Some dealers will hold guns on behalf of sellers until checks can go through, but if buyers don’t qualify in the end, a dealer isn’t allowed to return the gun without a background check on the seller.
“They have to do that to give back your own gun,” Van Cleave said. “It’s ridiculous.”
So I have two questions. Where are all of those 2A sanctuary counties if they won’t stop this and defend the right of citizens to do person to person transfers without state approval? And what the hell good are the sanctuary counties if they’re going to forget all about their commitments so quickly?
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 1 month ago
News from Virginia.
The General Assembly’s action would have been considered a rousing success if the goal was to increase, rather than decrease, the number of firearms in the commonwealth. But since there are now more than a half million more of these weapons in Virginia than there were before the Democrats’ highly-touted gun control bills passed, one can only conclude that the effort was a total flop.
Oh, I don’t think it was a total flop. It had the affect of making it more difficult on FFLs, which was one of the goals.
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 3 months ago
Via David Codrea, news from Virginia.
Virginia’s new one-handgun-per-month restriction resulted in 1,102 people being denied the purchase of a firearm during the law’s first month — by far the largest percentage of the 1,877 denials issued in July by the Virginia Firearms Transaction Center.
The high number of denials is due in part to confusion among firearms dealers and their customers about how the monthly or 30-day restriction period is calculated. Many believed that the law would not apply to purchases they made during the month before the law went into effect on July 1.
“It was confusing,” said Mark Tosh, president of Town Gun Shop Inc., with stores in Martinsville and Chesterfield County. “I think it caught a lot of people off guard, because everybody thought, OK July 1, and now the clock starts ticking if you buy a handgun. If I buy one July 1, then by Aug. 2, I should be fine [to buy another]. But nobody knew they were going to go back into June. I think that’s why you saw so many denials.”
[ … ]
“They made it retroactive and did not tell us. That’s the deal,” Cochran said. “We had no idea. We could have asked [customers] if they had purchased a gun in June.”
“The law does say 30 days, but everybody would have naturally assumed that it started July 1 — we all did,” he added. “Nobody would have assumed that if you bought one on June 30 … that you couldn’t buy one on July 1.”
[ … ]
Asked about how the law has been misinterpreted, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said, “The plain language of the legislation on the new 30-day limitation on handgun purchases prohibits someone from purchasing a handgun after June 30, 2020, if that same individual also bought one within the previous 30 days — unless the purchaser is covered by an exemption to this statute.”
She’s a liar, but she’s paid to be a liar. That’s how she makes her living. There’s nothing plain about the language. I could interpret it multiple ways.
If I was going to make this abominable law, at least I would have thought about the difference between one per month, one per 30 days, and whether the Δt (differential time) had to be the total amount stipulated in the stupid new law or if the one handgun could be purchased within the time window regardless of location within that window.
But maybe that’s the point, huh? To help confuse everyone because of less than plain language.
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 7 months ago
News from Virginia.
The bills signed by the governor on Friday are:
• Senate Bill 70 and House Bill 2, which establish universal background checks in Virginia
• Senate Bill 240 and House Bill 674, which establish an Extreme Risk Protective Order, allowing authorities to temporarily take guns away from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others
• Senate Bill 69 and House Bill 812, which reinstate Virginia’s one-handgun-a-month law
• House Bill 9, which requires gun owners to report their lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement within 48 hours or face a civil penalty.
• House Bill 1083, which toughens the penalty for leaving a loaded, unsecured firearm in a reckless manner that endangers a child
The AWB failing to pass is a small victory, as they could never have confiscated them. The UBC and red flag law are extremely damaging to God-given rights.
Mark this one as a win for the controllers in spite of the gun rights rally in Richmond. The VCDL did their best. The NRA completely failed to engage because they are a gun control organization.
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 8 months ago
From Ammoland.
Every one of these bills is as affront to good men in Virginia, but this one stands out to me.
SB 64 – makes a group of two or more individuals brandishing with the intent and purpose of intimidating others a felony.
Of course, it’s up to the LEOs whether you’re intimidating others, or maybe it’s left up to the one making the call to the LEOs. After all, calls to the police render and report a perfect state of mind, just like when a person makes a red flag call, there is never a mistake. Because women. Or children. Or something.
So the Virginia legislature is telling Virginians that Richmond rally day was a once in a lifetime event for them. The elitists won’t allow that any more.
And note the word “brandishing.” This is problematic, because there is no distinction between open carry and brandishing. They want it that way. It’s legal to openly carry in Virginia, but if you do it along with someone else, it’s “brandishing.” And you know they’ll prosecute it that way.
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 8 months ago
Deepclips.com.
Residents of Amherst County in Virginia lined up to volunteer at a militia muster call on Saturday, March 7. The crowd of “able-bodied residents of the Commonwealth” exercised their right to organize in case the full militia as defined under Virginia Code 44-1 is ever required to defend constitutional rights and liberties.
Floyd, Bedford and Campbell Counties have also recently held militia musters and the movement appears to be picking up steam.
It’s good to see this movement progressing. It would be too easy to stand down in Virginia. There’s a natural tendency to go back to the way things were.
