Legislation restricting 2nd Amendment freedoms opposed by VCDL

BILLS Virginia Citizens Defense League STRONGLY OPPOSES -- 2010 General Assembly Session

SB 269, Senator Whipple, allows local government to ban guns on property owned by that locality. This bill would destroy preemption and would create a web of complicated gun laws that would do nothing to deter criminals, but would make it much harder for a law-abiding citizen to be able to carry a handgun for self-defense. Crimes are committed on government property and people need to be able to protect themselves wherever they may be. This bill targets law-abiding citizens by making the mere possession of a firearm on the wrong piece of real estate a criminal act.

HB 520, Delegate Morrissey, requires that anyone who sells three or more guns at a gun show be a Federal Firearms Licensee. This puts a huge, unnecessary, and arbitrary barrier to anyone who wishes to sell sell part or all of their gun collection.

HB 879, Delegate BaCote, allows localities to ban firearms and/or ammunition in libraries by ordinance. This bill would destroy preemption and would create a web of complicated gun laws that would do nothing to deter criminals, but would make it much harder for a law-abiding citizen to be able to carry a handgun for self-defense. Crimes are committed in and around libraries and people need to be able to protect themselves wherever they may be. Like SB 269, this billtargets law-abiding citizens.

HB 1146, Delegate J.M. Scott, subjects a person who has had their parental rights terminated to a lifetime firearms ban. No other civil rights are affected. Only felonies in Virginia law permanently terminate a person’s rights and this bill takes a dangerous deviation from that precedent.

HB 1209, Delegate Ward, requires that a person who has a lawfully registered machine gun notify the State Police of a change of address of the registrant or a change of the permanent location of the machine gun. This whole registration scheme is a waste of time as the federal government already has that information. The Commonwealth could save money by simply scrapping the state registration, not making it even more complicated for a person to lawfully own a machine gun.

HB 1214, Delegate Kory, removes the ability for a law-abiding citizen to have an unloaded gun in a container in a vehicle on public school property. Private or religious schools are left unchanged. A citizen’s ability to have a gun in their vehicle on any kind of school property needs to be left alone. This bill will do nothing to prevent crime, but only make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

BILLS VCDL OPPOSES

HB 681, Delegate J.H. Miller, allows police officers to be able to arrest someone for a class 1 or 2 misdemeanor at will. Current law has reasonable exceptions that allow for arrest and give the police sufficient power to do their job. This is the same bill VCDL has opposed for years now.

HB 684, Delegate J.H. Miller, adds “butterfly” knives to the concealed weapon list that law-abiding citizens can no longer carry concealed, further expanding government power at the expense of our rights. Do we really need to keep expanding the list of prohibited self-defense options available to law-abiding citizens by disallowing even useful implements and tools? Machetes, butterfly knives... this is getting ridiculous. We seem to be moving in the direction of Britain, which now wants their subjects stripped even of kitchen knives. In the name of "prior restraint" there may be no end to the otherwise legal and useful items that government may deny us because "somebody might do something wrong with them."


BILLS VCDL IS NEUTRAL ON

HB 1092, Delegate Crockett-Stark, allows retired police to be able tocarry a concealed handgun without a permit wherever they may go. VCDL has no problem with good people like retired-police carrying a concealed handgun wherever they may go, but it gets tiresome that the government gives special privileges such as this to its own, while restricting the very citizens it is supposed to be serving. Law-abiding citizens, too, should be able to carry a concealed handgun wherever we might go and not need a state-issued permission slip to do so.

HB 1210, Delegate Loupassi, allows judges to be able to carry a concealed handgun without a permit wherever they may go. VCDL has no problem with good people like judges carrying a concealed handgun wherever they may go, but it gets tiresome that the government keeps giving special privileges such as this to its own, while restricting the very citizens it is supposed to be serving. Law-abiding citizens, too, should be able to carry a concealed handgun wherever we might go and not need a state-issued permission slip to do so.

H/T to Mike