Posted on 04/27/2020 3:58:08 PM PDT by COBOL2Java
As bad as this session was for Virginia gun owners, it could have been much worse. The General Assembly did not pass the proposed legislation that would have banned, and in some cases confiscated, commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and their magazines and accessories that Northam demanded. Moreover, moderate members of the Senate Democratic caucus helped to limit the background check legislation to sales, leaving gun owners free to loan and gift firearms to their friends and family without government intrusion.
The worst case scenario was avoided thanks to the herculean efforts of NRA members and other gun rights activists across the Commonwealth. Between the sanctuary county movement that now covers the vast majority of the state, NRA members contacting their lawmakers and meeting with them in person, and the massive gun rights rally on January 20 in Richmond, Virginia gun owners have become the model for how a passionate grassroots movement can influence government policy.
That same passion will be needed going forward.
On April 19, podcast Transition Virginia, which describes itself as "an edgy, political news-commentary podcast on the transition of power in Virginia from a red to blue," released an episode featuring Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran and Lori Haas of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV). Virginia gun rights advocates may remember Haas as a vocal cheerleader for Attorney General Mark Herring's 2015 attempt to remove reciprocity for 25 states Right-to-Carry permits. Haas opposed the compromise legislation with then-Governor Terry McAuliffe that reversed Herring's maneuver by granting reciprocity to all state Right-to-Carry permits. Longtime gun rights supporters will know that CSGV is the handgun prohibition organization that until 1990 was known as the National Coalition to Ban Handguns.
On the podcast, Haas laid out gun control activists' plans for the 2021 legislative session. Haas told the interviewer, "We'll be back... a couple people joked with me [Secretary Moran] one of them, 'Lori we've got seven bills what are we going to do next year?' Oh I've got a big list for you secretary." Haas made clear that a renewed push to ban commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and their magazines was at the top of gun control advocates' agenda, claiming that such items "have no place in civil society." Haas also noted that her group is already working with legislators to pass a ban next year.
For his part, Moran claimed that commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms are not protected under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The secretary also approvingly pointed to Maryland's ban on commonly-owned firearms.
Banning commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms or their magazines is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that governments cannot ban these firearms as they are “in common use” for lawful purposes.
Taken alone, Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in Heller is enough to dispose of Moran’s comments. In the decision, Justice Scalia made clear that the types of firearms protected by the Second Amendment include those “in common use at the time” for “lawful purposes like self-defense.”
The firearms industry has estimated that Americans own more than 17.5 million semi-automatic rifles. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the U.S. and therefore indisputably “in common use” and protected by the Second Amendment.
All doubt as to whether the Supreme Court’s decisions in Heller and McDonald preclude bans on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms was settled in 2015. That year, Justice Scalia joined Justice Thomas in a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.
Justice Thomas explained,
Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.A sweeping gun ban isn't all Haas and her gun prohibitionist allies are seeking to accomplish in 2021. Haas also told the podcast that gun control advocates are working on measures to restrict both concealed and open carry, so-called "safe storage" legislation, and a bill to enact an onerous firearm permit to purchase regime. In a decidedly regressive move, Haas even shared her interest in attacking Virginia's restoration of rights procedure, whereby former criminals who have paid their debt to society are able to regain their civil rights.
Moran and Haas's interview makes clear that the enemies of freedom are not satisfied with the gun controls enacted in Virginia this year. Therefore, the commonwealth's gun rights activists must remain vigilant in order to combat this perpetual threat to freedom. Virginians should start by informing their friends, loved ones, and other like-minded individuals of the continuing threat gun owners face in the commonwealth. This year gun owners proved that a determined grassroots effort can preserve freedom. Virginian gun rights supporters must continue to exhibit the same tenacity and determination in the years to come.
a renewed push to ban commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and their magazines was at the top of gun control advocates’ agenda, claiming that such items “have no place in civil society.”
Dear Lori,
Do not make the mistake of placing me out side of
civil society. It would not go well for you, being
civilized and all.
An American.
Ralphie is your enemy, folks. He will use his position to attack and destroy his enemies. He will use the monopoly on force of the state to suppress freedom and Constitutionally protected and God given rights and the state police will willingly go along with it just to save their jobs.
He is a perfect example of who your enemy in this life is. He would murder you where you stand if he knew he could get away with it.
Learn from history, folks. Buy weapons and ammo.
JoMa
She already laid out the plan - seems quite confident.
Hey Virginia,it is time to take your state back from these scum.
Looking approvingly at MD’s fascist gun laws, eh?
And we have a puke governor who won’t work to repeal them.
Like I said in the past. if they manage to get an anti-gun law passed rest assured they will be back for more, and more.
That is the way Nelson “Pete” Shields, founder of Handgun Control Inc (now the Brady center) said he would do it in an interview back in 1976.
Nelson T. ‘Pete’ Shields
Founder of Handgun Control, Inc.
“I’m convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest.
Of course, it’s true that politicians will then go home and say, ‘This is a great law. The problem is solved.’ And it’s also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time.
So then we’ll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time.
My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — TOTALLY ILLEGAL.”
-Pete Shields, Chairman and founder, Handgun Control Inc., “A Reporter At Large: Handguns,” The New Yorker, July 26, 1976, 57-58
“Yes, I’m for an outright ban [on handguns].”
-Pete Shields, Chairman emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc., 60 Minutes interview
HCI, around 1984, made a grab for the semi-auto rifles and shotguns, and missed. Then Josh Sugarmann tuned in. This has been the mantra ever since.
” Assault weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons —anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun— can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”
– Josh Sugarmann
In 1981, actress Lee Grant went on Good Morning America, poked holes in the air and yelled...
“THE NRA IS A RIFLE ORGANIZATION! THEY SHOULD GIVE UP THEIR HANDGUNS AND THEY CAN KEEP THEIR RIFLES!”
Hard to believe that since 1962 they have gone ONLY after handguns, alway promising they would not go after rifles.
***Banning commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms or their magazines is unconstitutional.***
Back in the 1840s, the state of GA banned the ownership of handguns. The STATE Supreme Court made this decision on the ban...
From the highly suppressed Senate Report of 1982
https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt.html
19. * Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846).
“’The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.”
I can live with that.
“punish property crime victims who fail to hastily report a firearm as stolen...”
It’s actually stolen OR lost I think. So you can’t say you lost them on those notoriously tippable canoes. To my understanding this law combined with expanded background checks for private gun sales is basically gun registration for those firearms purchased from a FFL holder after the laws come into effect in July.
Supposedly 11 other states have the mandatory reporting law for lost or stolen firearms, how often is anyone prosecuted for violations?
Freegards
I’m always amazed at the patience of gun owners and proponents.
Without their allowance, gun controllers would not exist.
“Buy weapons and ammo.”
Was at the range today. I was told ammo is in short supply nationwide.
Already been lots of buying going on.
Progtard DildoCrats are pure evil.
So is anyone who would vote for or support ANY Progtard DildoCrat for ANY office.
In the wake of November’s disastrous elections, I realized that Virginia is doomed for conservatives. The influx of illegal and legal immigrants, especially in Northern Virginia, coupled with pervasive and in-your-face electoral fraud, will ensure a permanent Democrat hegemony.
I moved to Tennessee, where freedom still lives and no such antigun bs will be tolerated.
Stock up. Arm. Train. Prepare. A storm is coming.
In a more enlightened time these gun control freaks would have been dealt with swiftly and deliberately. Usually in conjunction with a rope and a tree.
Yes; I think they had it right back then. Instant karma. Well; quicker than now anyway.
Stinking Communist Crap Alert!
Maybe there will only way to save Virginia.../s 
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