A Closer Look At The First Gun Bills To See Action in VA

After Democrats in control of Virginia’s Senate Judiciary Committee approved four gun control bills on Monday, I thought it would be a good idea to delve into the details of the legislation, especially since several bills were amended by the committee.  David Adams, legislative affairs director of the Virginia Shooting Sports Association was at the committee hearing on Monday morning, and joins me on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co. to talk about what these bills now look like, and what happens next.

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The biggest change was likely with the proposed universal background check law. Sen. Chap Petersen from northern Virginia (but one who was a reputation for being more “moderate” on gun issues than his colleagues like Sen. Dick Saslaw) successfully changed the bill to only apply to sales of firearms, not transfers. However, virtually all exceptions were stripped from the legislation, which means if the bill passes in its current form, you could give your brother a shotgun for Christmas without having to go through the background check process, but if he sold it back to you the day after Christmas you’d have to through a background check in order to legally receive it.

As Adams says, the change probably makes a bad bill a little less awful, but it’s still not anything that the VSSA, VCDL, or any other 2A group is going to support.

We also discuss changes to the “red flag” or Extreme Risk Protection Order legislation approved by the committee, as well as “one-gun-a-month” and a bill to weaken the state’s firearms preemption policy.

One other topic of conversation came up as well; the dishonesty and flagrant flouting of parliamentary procedures that Democrats are engaging in at the capitol. According to Adams, the Senate Judiciary Committee wasn’t even supposed to hear any gun bills on Monday, due to the absence of Sen. Bill Stanley. In fact, the committee chairman, Sen. John Edwards, told Stanley that no gun bills would be called. Apparently the Democrat Caucus changed Sen. Edwards’ mind, because after an hour-long delay caused by the Democrats’ new ban on firearms in the capitol, the Senate not only approved every gun control bill brought up for discussion, it even killed a bill that wasn’t on the docket (which violated Senate procedures).

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Be sure to check out the entire conversation, and if you’re a Virginia gun owner, be sure to contact your delegate and state senator to express your opposition to these gun bills now heading to the Senate floor.

Also on today’s program we have the story of a budding young rapper on parole in California who’s now facing murder charges, a woman who pulled her gun on a pervert in the woman’s room at a Dearborn, Michigan mall, and a Wisconsin police officer in the right place at the right time to save Old Glory from blowing away.

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