VA Gun Rights Advocates Vow To Fight Northam's Anti-Gun Agenda

Virginia’s Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has proposed a whole slate of gun control for the state’s 2019 legislative session. He didn’t have a lot of luck last year, but that doesn’t mean Northam doesn’t have terrifying plans for the Old Dominion State.

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However, both Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups have vowed to put up a fight against Northam’s radical agenda.

Kirk Cox, the Republican speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates, outlined in a Monday tweet his party’s approach to the wide-ranging package of gun-control measures the governor plans to pursue.

“The @vahousegop will steadfastly fight to defend the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens from far-left gun control proposals this session,” he said.

His office told the Washington Free Beacon Republicans would review the details of the individual proposals included in the package when they were made available but pointed to the speaker’s tweet as indicative of where the party stands on Northam’s efforts.

The NRA, whose headquarters is based in Virginia, said Northam’s proposals were the result of his political ambitions rather than a desire to deal with violent crime.

“Virginians want elected officials to address the root causes of violent crime and find solutions that will save lives instead of pursuing gun-control policies that criminals will not follow and will make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves,” Catherine Mortensen, spokesperson for the NRA’s Institute of Legislative Action, told the Free Beacon. “This latest gun-control agenda is being pushed by politicians who would rather score political points than tackle the tough issues related to violent crime.”

The Virginia Citizens Defense League said the package of gun-control measures would likely criminalize many law-abiding Virginia gun owners.

“None of the gun bills that Governor Northam is pushing will make Virginians any safer,” Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, told the Free Beacon. “But they would go a long way into turning law-abiding Virginia citizens into inadvertent criminals.”

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This is good because Northam has made it clear he wants to push a radical anti-gun agenda.

It should also be noted that while the rest of the country was having midterm elections, Virginia was already done. The Virginia General Assembly was elected in 2017, meaning there’s been no shakeup in the legislature’s makeup.

In both the House and the Senate, Republicans hold a slim majority, 21-19 in the Senate and 51-49 in the House.

It’s about as close as you can get.

From what we’ve seen, Virginia lawmakers aren’t interested in working with Northam on his Bloomberg-approved agenda, which is probably for the best. After all, nothing that comes out of the gun control camp is anything but feel-good legislation designed to make it look like lawmakers are addressing problems but falls well short of actually accomplishing much for anything.

Anything other than making life difficult for the law-abiding citizen, that is.

However, it’s important that Virginians not get too comfortable. It will only take a couple of Republicans deciding it’s better for their careers to vote for a gun control proposal to shift the state’s Second Amendment future completely.

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