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Posts Tagged ‘assault weapons ban’

Governor Younkin Ends Talk of Gun Bans, For Now

Posted in gun rights, tagged , , , , , , , on April 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Last week, Governor Glenn Youngkin ended the gun ban lobby’s dream of a gun ban mecca in Virginia, at least for now. The Democrats in the General Assembly and the gun ban lobby introduced a flurry of gun control bills from waiting periods to buy a gun to outright bans of the most popular firearms in the nation. Last Tuesday, Younkin vetoed 30 of the bills and amended six. The Democrats did not react well to the news. House Majority Leader Charniele Herring (D.) said she is “ashamed of the Governor’s vetoes.” House Democratic Caucus Chair Kathy Tran said the vetoes “threaten the safety and prosperity of our communities across the commonwealth.” And not to be out done House Speaker Don Scott turned to what has become basic talking points when talking about Republicans by referenceing “MAGA Republicans” and claimed they “refused to act and protect our children, and Virginians will hold them accountable in November.”

The Reload talked to Bearingarms.com‘s Cam Edwards for this week’s Reload Podcast. Among the things that Cam noted:

He argued the dynamics at play during this year’s legislative session were pretty surprising.

Not only did we not know what Youngkin would do with the dozens of gun bills that made it to his desk before he formally announced his vetoes, but the way those proposals got through the legislature was surprising too. Every Democrat in the state house held together to vote for every single proposal, even the more aggressive bans and restrictions.

Cam said that was a fascinating development given the large grassroots backlash the party faced after its last attempt to enact sweeping gun reforms in 2020. He also argued the dynamic that has developed in the state’s gun politics should be very concerning for gun-rights advocates.

I totally agree with Cam on that last point. I was in committee meetings in 2020 where the hearing rooms were packed to overflowing with gun owners. This year it was the NRA lobbist, a couple of VCDL folks, and the Virginia Shooting Sports Association (VSSA) representative who testified virtually by ZOOM. Every now and then there would be less than a handful of gun owners but nothing like 2020. Gun owners in Virginia need to wake up because Democrats have circled the wagons around Abigail Spanberger for Governor in 2025 and she is not going to be easy to beat.

Take a listen to the full podcast and if you aren’t a subscriber to The Reload, I highly recommend it because there is a lot of member only content.

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2024 General Assembly a Preview of 2026 if Democrats Take Total Control of Government

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This year’s Virginia General Assembly was a preview of what will happen in 2026 if Democrats take total control of Virginia Govenrment by winning the House and the Governor’s Office in 2025. The Democrats and the gun ban lobby emptied their entire wish list this year knowing there was little chance that Governor Youngkin would sign any of the bills. They introduced bans on so-called “assault weapons”. They introduced bills implementing a waiting period of anywhere from three to five days after the completion of the background check paperwork before taking possession of a firearm. They introduced a bill to prohibit carrying a concealed firearm in a restuarant like Applebees or Olive Garden – restuarants that serve alcohol as well as food. They even introduced a bill to place an additional tax on firearms and ammunition to fund gun control grants. In all, the Democratically controlled legislature sent 37 gun ban bills to Governor Younkin. Some are duplicate/companion bills so the actual policy actions are somewhat shorter but still many none-the-less. That list includes:

  • HB2/SB2: bans so-called “assault firearms” and magazines holding more than 10 rounds made after July 1, 2024. The definition of “assault firearm” is expanded to capture more types of firearms. It also prohibits ownership of “assault firearms” by young adults.
  • HB46/SB47: requires someone holding firearms for a prohibited person to be 21 or older and to live at a different address.
  • SB57: prohibits a concealed handgun permit (CHP) holder from carrying a concealed handgun on the premises of a restaurant like Applebees or Olive Garde which serves alcoholic in addition to food.
  • SB99: prohibits the carry of semi-automatic firearms with certain cosmetic features in public areas.
  • HB 173/SB100: requires serialization of so-called “ghost-guns made after 1968.
  • HB175: prohibits the carrying of “assault firearms” in public areas, regardless of whether they are loaded.
  • HB183: requires all firearms in a home, that are not being carried by the owner, to be locked up if there is a minor present.
  • SB225: requires schools to text or email subjective information on guns to parents at the start of a school year.
  • SB258: expands the things a judge can consider and must consider when issuing an Red Flag Order (also known as an Extreme Risk Protection Order).
  • HB1195/SB273: requires a five-day waiting period for firearm sales.
  • HB318/SB491: allows for frivolous lawsuits against the gun industry with the purpose to litigate the firearms industry out of business.
  • HB1174/SB327: makes it illegal for young adults to purchase an “assault firearm.” The definition of “assault firearm” is expanded to capture most commonly sold firearms.
  • HB351: requires a person purchasing a firearm to sign certification that no minor lives in the home or a locking device must be included with the firearm.
  • HB362: adds “dating relationship” to the definition of a “domestic relationship” for purposes of prohibiting guns for misdemeanor domestic violence.
  • SB363: makes it unlawful to possess, sell, or distribute a firearm with an altered serial number.
  • SB368: requires all firearms in a home, that are not being carried by the owner, to be locked up if there is a minor present.
  • SB383: prohibits firearms in higher education buildings unless part of an authorized program or activity in that building.
  • SB447: creates a $500 fine and makes a vehicle subject to towing if there is a visible handgun inside an unattended vehicle.
  • HB454: prohibits firearms in higher education buildings unless part of an authorized program or activity in that building.
  • HB466: severely restricts recognition of out-of-state carry permits.
  • HB498: requires schools to text subjective information on guns to parents at the start of a school year.
  • HB861/SB515: prohibits firearms in hospitals.
  • HB797/SB522: removes NRA and USCCA training courses from the list of qualified training courses to qualify for a CHP.
  • HB585: prohibits home-based Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) from operating within 1.5 miles of any elementary or middle school.
  • HB637: creates a training program to make more frequent use of Red Flag Order (also known as an Extreme Risk Protection Order).
  • SB642: adds “dating relationship” to the definition of a “domestic relationship” for purposes of prohibiting guns for misdemeanor domestic violence.
  • HB798: takes away a person’s right to own a firearm for several misdemeanor convictions, including simple assault.
  • HB799: requires a person be fingerprinted when applying for a new or renewed CHP.
  • HB939: prohibits firearms within 100 feet of an electoral board, voter registration, voter satellite building, or a drop-off location or absentee voter precinct.

Ahead of last Saturday’s end of the session, Governor Youngkin vetoed two of the bills, and amended another. The House and Senate carried those bills over to the reconvened session, which will take up all of the Governor’s vetoes and amendements.

I was present in the various committees and subcommittees that took up these bills and what struck me the most was there were very few gun owners in the meetings compared to 2020 when the committee meetings were packed. It’s possible that a number of gun owners decided to let emails to their delegates and senators as well as to the committees do their talking but there just did not seem to be the individual activism this time. The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), Virginia Shooting Sports Association (VSSA) and the NRA all had representatives speaking to the bills but in 2020, committee rooms were overflowing with individual gun owners. Not so much this time. The Governor’s election is going to be very tough in 2025. Gun owners will need to either elect a pro-rights House or elect a pro-rights Governor to prevent any of the above policy changes from becoming law.

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Abigail Spanberger Running for Governor

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »

On Monday, 7th District Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger announced she is running for Governor in 2025. She also released a slick ad to go with the announcement:

As Cam Edwards mentioned over on Bearingarms.com, she didn’t mention guns in the ad, going instead to what looked like a tried and true recipe for success when she made abortion the top issue in the ad. As someone who has lived in her district most of the time she has been in congress, she is no friend of gun owners as Cam pointed out:

Spanberger and her colleagues laid out a list of policy proposals the Biden Administration could undertake as part of its push to address gun violence through executive action. The proposed policies include:

  • Instructing DoD and other federal agencies that purchase firearms to implement standards for procuring taxpayer-funded firearms only from manufacturers that agree to adopt a code of conduct. The code of conduct could include declining to sell military-grade weapons to civilians and only selling to responsible dealers who refuse to proceed with a sale without a completed background check — even when they are legally authorized to do so.
  • Reevaluating the list of guns eligible for import under the “sporting purposes” exception, which could significantly reduce the import of dangerous assault weapons.
  • Transferring authority over assault rifle exports back to the State Department from the Commerce Department, reversing the Trump Administration’s shift of authority to Commerce — which allowed a surge in exports of these deadly weapons.
  • Encouraging the Federal Trade Commission to issue a policy statement on “unfair or deceptive” gun ads that falsely assert that firearm ownership increases household residents’ physical safety from gun violence.
  • Directing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review its interpretation of the Tiahrt Amendment to expand the types of firearm trace data that can be released to the public — including to researchers, litigants, and journalists.

It’s possible that the issue of guns will come up in the Democrat primary as other candidates, including Richmond Mayor Lavar Stoney are expected to jump in to this race but based on the 2023 election, it is likely we are going to hear a lot about abortion until the GOP figures our how to respond to the claims the GOP want to ban all proceedures while the Democrats only want to go back to the Roe standard.  It will be up to gun owners to make sure Spanberger and other candidates tell voters whether they will go for far reaching gun bans like they did in 2020, or if they will be satisfied with the gun control that passed already.

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This is what Democrats have in store for gun owners if they retake complete control of Virginia Government

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

In yesterday’s Senate Judiciary meeting, Senator Creigh Deeds’ SB1382 was reported out of committee and rereferred to Senate Finance and Appropriations. This is the new version of a so-called “assault weapons” ban. It has absolutely no chance of getting out of the House of Delegates, which currently has a slight pro-rights majority, but it gives us a glance of what is in store for gun owners if the Democrats regain complete control of Virginia government after the 2025 statewide elections. What do they consider an “assault weapon”? The below is from the bill:

“Assault firearm” means any:

  1. A semi-automatic center-fire rifle or pistol which that expels single or multiple projectiles by action of an explosion of a combustible material and is equipped at the time of the offense with a magazine which will hold more than 20 rounds of ammunition or designed by the manufacturer to accommodate a silencer or equipped with a folding stock with a fixed magazine capacity in excess of 10 rounds;
  2. A semi-automatic center-fire rifle that expels single or multiple projectiles by action of an explosion of a combustible material that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has one of the following characteristics: (i) a folding, telescoping, or collapsible stock; (ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the rifle; (iii) a second handgrip or a protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand; (iv) a grenade launcher; (v) a flare launcher; (vi) a sound suppressor; (vii) a flash suppressor; (viii) a muzzle brake; (ix) a muzzle compensator; (x) a threaded barrel capable of accepting (a) a sound suppressor, (b) a flash suppressor, (c) a muzzle brake, or (d) a muzzle compensator; or (xi) any characteristic of like kind as enumerated in clauses (i) through (x);
  3. A semi-automatic center-fire pistol that expels single or multiple projectiles by action of an explosion of a combustible material that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has one of the following characteristics: (i) a folding, telescoping, or collapsible stock; (ii) a second handgrip or a protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand; (iii) the capacity to accept a magazine that attaches to the pistol outside of the pistol grip; (iv) a shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles, the barrel and that permits the shooter to hold the pistol with the non-trigger hand without being burned; (v) a threaded barrel capable of accepting (a) a sound suppressor, (b) a flash suppressor, (c) a barrel extender, or (d) a forward handgrip; or (vi) any characteristic of like kind as enumerated in clauses (i) through (v);
  4. A semi-automatic shotgun that expels single or multiple projectiles by action of an explosion of a combustible material that has one of the following characteristics: (i) a folding, telescoping, or collapsible stock, (ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the shotgun, (iii) the ability to accept a detachable magazine, (iv) a fixed magazine capacity in excess of seven rounds, or (v) any characteristic of like kind as enumerated in clauses (i) through (iv); or
  5. A shotgun with a magazine that will hold more than seven rounds of the shortest ammunition for which it is chambered. An “assault firearm” does not include any firearm that is an antique firearm, has been rendered permanently inoperable, is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action, or was manufactured before July 1, 2023.

This bill bans the most popular firearms, both pistols and rifles, that are currently made in America. While you would be able to keep the firearms you currently own, you would not be able to purchase one manufactured after July 1, 2023. As I said, this bill is going nowhere beyond the Senate. But if gun owners don’t vote their rights in future elections, this is our future in Virginia, and we can’t guarantee that the Supreme Court will bail us out of the mess we create.

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Biden Wants to Ban Modern Sporting Rifles But Avoids Facts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 14, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Joe Biden said the quiet part out loud on Thanksgiving when he said “The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick. Just sick. It has no socially redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.” The White House later walked back the comment to say Biden meant so-called “assault weapons”. This focus on the most popular rifle in America avoids a very important fact. Rifles of all kinds are rarely used in crime, and especially modern sporting rifles. Sure, when they are used in a mass shooting the media focuses like a laser beam on the firearm, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still used rarely.

But as an op-ed in the New York Post said over the weekend, “Biden’s focus on semiautomatic weapons is ignorance manifest“.

Hat tip to Gun Facts for the graphic.

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Will Biden Take Executive Action on Modern Sporting Rifles?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 29, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Last week, President Joe Biden called for banning all semi-automatic firearms.

Number two, the idea — the idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick.  It’s just sick.  It has no, no social redeeming value.  Zero.  None.  Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.

Biden seems to think that the polls have shifted in his direction with the recent spate of shootings:

But with an eye toward positioning himself and his party for 2024, Biden believes public opinion has shifted in Democrats’ favor on certain key social issues, said the aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal strategy.

Today, Cam Edwards over at Bearingarms.com writes about how the White House won’t say if Biden will accede to the wishes of the gun ban lobby and ban modern sporting rifles:

Most of those guns purchased by responsible Americans are precisely the semi-automatic firearms that Biden believes should be illegal for the average citizen to own and possess, but if Congress won’t provide him with the votes needed to impose his ban his friends in the anti-gun movement are already suggesting another idea; banning them through an administrative order. 

I’m not really sure why Biden thinks the public is on his side on this one. Last week, a Gallup poll released shows a nine-point drop in support for stricter gun laws since the same survey was taken in June. It also showed a three-point increase in the number of Americans reporting they have a gun in the home. While a majority of respondents report supporting stricter gun laws and having no gun in their home, the gap none-the-less has shrunk significantly. Stephen Gutowski at The Reload wrote of the poll results that the rising trend of gun ownership combined with weakened support for more gun control could make passing new restrictions more difficult at the national and state levels.

Virginia’s General Assembly convenes in January. We will see what if any new legislative proposals come from the Democrats, which still control the State Senate. 2023 is also an election year with the entire assembly up for re-election.

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Kristen Gillibrand Wants to Make You a Criminal if You Don’t Comply with Compensated Confiscation

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , on August 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Politico has the story here.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday suggested she supports a mandatory federal buyback program for assault weapons and criminal prosecution for gun owners who do not sell those firearms to the government — a measure the vast majority of her fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have been reluctant to embrace.

“I think we should ban assault weapons as well as large magazines, and as part of passing that ban, do a buyback program across the country so that those who own them can be … compensated for their money that they spent. But I think both of those ideas are strong,” Gillibrand told CNN.

“You don’t want people to retain them because if you make them illegal, you don’t want to grandfather in all the assault weapons that are all across America,” Gillibrand said when pressed on whether such a buyback program should be mandatory. “You would like people to sell them back to the government so that you can make sure people who shouldn’t have access to these weapons couldn’t have them.”

Most of her fellow Democratic candidates for President favor a voluntary compensated confiscation program but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker also support the proposal.

The Democrats have been emboldened since the most recent mass shootings.  They believe they have a majority of the public on their side helped by a willing media to spread the narrative created by the gun ban lobby.  It is up to us to effectively counter that with letters to the editor and by contacting our state and federal legislators.

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NRA Takes Message to Sunday Morning News Shows

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , , , on June 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

On Sunday, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation to discuss the Obama administration’s failure to protect Americans from radical Islamic terror attacks. He portrayed the administration’s concentration on gun control as a distraction from the very real threats that our nation faces today.

Also NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox appeared on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, explaining where the responsibility lies for Americans’ vulnerability to terror attacks and firing back against false accusations toward the NRA. He affirmed the organization’s absolute stance against arming suspected terrorists and argued against the effectiveness of so-called “assault weapons” bans.

 

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When Was the Last Time You Had to Show ID to Buy Starbucks?

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , on June 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Apparently Starbucks works differently in some places than they do in Richmond.  That’s the only thing I can take from this CBS This Morning piece.

Did you catch gun control advocate and UCLA Law School professor Adam Winkler saying “in most places you can go in to a gun store and buy an AR-15 much like you can a Starbucks and buy a coffee.”  Really?  The CBS producer bought the firearm after showing the required two forms of ID plus she provided a passport.  Have you ever done that in a Starbucks or any other coffee shop?

Mark Anthony Wright at National Review Online offered some great thoughts on this non-story:

Take a minute to think about the demands of the gun-control Left. Would universal, instant background checks have prevented this purchase? The purchaser passed a background check. How about preventing those on the terrorism watch list from purchasing guns? While I can’t be sure, I assume CBS’s producer was not on the terrorism watch list. How about making sure the mentally ill, those involved in domestic abuse, or minors cannot purchase guns? What about cracking down on “Internet sales” or expanding the definition of “federally licensed firearm dealers” to include most private sellers? What about closing the “gun-show loophole”? It doesn’t appear that any of those reforms would have prevented this purchase either.
CBS’s producer fulfilled the requirements under the law to purchase the weapon — if CBS wants to take the editorial position that all gun purchases should face a mandatory 48- or 72-hour waiting period, that is their prerogative. But as it stands, this is a non-story. What would have made it a story? Perhaps if a CBS producer with a criminal record, or under some other current legal prohibition from purchasing a firearm, had managed to buy the rifle in 38 minutes. Now that would be a scandal.

And they wonder why fewer and fewer people watch network news programs.

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About Those 32,351 Gun Deaths in 2011

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , on October 6, 2015| 1 Comment »

Jazz Shaw has a great post over on Hot Air that really picks apart those numbers that the main stream media used to take President Obama up on his challenge to compare the number of Americans killed by terrorism and those killed by people who used a gun.

GunDeaths1

He chose to focus on 2011, probably because some government numbers lag behind others and that was the year for which he could get the most complete stats:

First of all, look at the number of gun deaths on that chart from 2011. It’s 32,351. That’s a lot of gun deaths to be sure. So that’s the total number of murders by gun owners, right? The answer is not only Hell No, but it’s not even remotely close. It’s true that this figure is close to the total number of human lives ended in incidents involving a gun, but that’s all incidents. So how did those deaths happen?

Straight from the CDC where most of the media is drawing their numbers (while not as good of a source as the FBI or the Justice Department) we can find out that of those 32,352 gun deaths, 21,175 of them were suicides. That leaves us with 11,177 deaths to account for. But as it turns out, the FBI records that 8,583 deaths were murders of various sorts involving guns of all types. The remaining roughly 2,500 were accounted for by accidents and unintentional injuries. These include hunting accidents, toddlers getting hold of unsecured weapons and shooting somebody or just plain idiots who proved Darwin right.

Then he delved into the type of firearms used in those murders:

GunDeaths2

After almost every mass shooting, one of the top three proposals from the gun ban lobby is we have to ban so-called “assault weapons.”  That’s just one more “check off the list” proposal because when we look at the actual 8,583 gun murders committed in 2011, only 323 were committed with rifles. That’s not just “assault” rifles,  that’s all rifles, including bolt action, hunting rifles and all the rest. Shaw notes that the number committed with so called “assault” rifles were a fraction of the total.  Compare that with the almost “1,700 who were stabbed as well as nearly 500 murdered with blunt objects and and more than 700 beaten to death by somebody with their bare hands.”  I guess the advocates for victims killed with hammers and fists will soon be calling for a ban of those too.

Then there are the calls for so-called “universal background checks.  Shaw addresses that:

So we’re down to 8,583 intentional killings using guns. That’s still one heck of a lot of bodies, and surely enough to justify new background checks and other restrictions on legal gun purchases, right? Again… not even close. The Justice Department has been studying the question of legal vs. illegal sources of guns used in crimes for decades, going back to this study issued in the early nineties. They admit that the numbers are simply too hard to track for us to pin down exact figures, but the trends are steady over the years. The vast majority of guns used in crimes were gotten through illegal means outside the legal purchase regimen followed by law abiding gun owners. Roughly one quarter of inmates convicted of gun crimes admitted to having stolen a gun in that study. For the ones that weren’t stolen directly, another 2004 study showed that 40% of convicts bought their guns on the black market and another 37% got them through the “gray market” in various illegal methods.

In fact, one study after another has shown that legally purchased weapons which followed all the normal firearms transfer rules accounted for somewhere between six and eight percent of all murders. And the majority of those were domestic violence incidents, violence between family members, crimes of passion and, yes… murders committed by the insane. But let’s give the gun grabbers the benefit of the doubt, round it up and say that ten percent were committed with legally purchases guns. That works out to around 850.

We can agree that 850 is still too many people, but it’s nowhere near the 32,000 per year that the gun ban lobby typically talk about.

The vast majority of people who die by firearms do so at their own hand, suicide.  As Shaw and others have noted, that’s not a gun control issue.  Accidental (or negligent as I prefer to call them) deaths are also a small part of the total but those numbers have been going down steadily over the years and the NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation have done a good job helping to make that happen.

So, the next time someone pushing gun control tries to trot out that over 30,000 people a year die because of “gun violence” you now have the facts to effectively refute them.

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