Opinion
Fairfax, VA – -(Ammoland.com)- As if Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s wholesale attack on law-abiding gun owners wasn’t enough, the disgraced public official and his Michael Bloomberg-bought allies in the General Assembly now want the state’s hard-working taxpayers to foot the bill for their unconstitutional schemes. The budget bill (HB30) includes an appropriation of a quarter-million dollars to carry out a host of gun control measures that Northam and his anti-gun allies hope to enact.
The $250,000 is appropriated to the Corrections Special Reserve Fund in order to provide for the “increase in the operating cost of adult correctional facilities resulting from the enactment” of Northam’s gun control measures. Among the enumerated laws that this allocation is meant to fund is a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, the criminalization of private firearms transfers, and gun confiscation orders issued without due process.
Aside from the insult of forcing law-abiding Virginia taxpayers to pay for the diminution of their rights, the gun control allocation is a severe waste of resources. Northam’s Bloomberg-backed gun control measures will not make Virginia safer.
In additional to being unconstitutional, a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms will not reduce violent crime.
Long guns of any description are rarely used in violent crime. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data breaks down homicides by weapon type. In 2018, the FBI reported that there were five times as many individuals listed as killed with “knives or cutting instruments,” than with rifles of any kind. The data also showed that rifles were listed as being used in less homicides than “blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)” or “personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.).”
A 1997 Department of Justice-funded study of the 1994 federal “assault weapons” ban determined that “At best, the assault weapons ban can have only a limited effect on total gun murders, because the banned weapons and magazines were never involved in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders.” A 2004 follow-up Department of Justice-funded study came to a similar conclusion. The study determined that “AWs [assault weapons] and LCMs [large capacity magazines] were used in only a minority of gun crimes prior to the 1994 federal ban,” “relatively few attacks involve more than 10 shots fired,” and “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”
So-called “universal” background checks do not stop criminals from obtaining firearms.
Background checks don’t stop criminals from stealing firearms, getting them on the black market, or getting them from straw purchasers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 75 percent of criminals in state and federal state prison who had possessed a firearm during their offense acquired the firearm through theft, “Off the street/underground market,” or “from a family member or friend, or as a gift.” Less than one percent got firearms from dealers or non-dealers at gun shows. ATF has reported, “[t]he most frequent type of trafficking channel identified in ATF investigations is straw purchasing from federally licensed firearms dealers.”
This year, researchers at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the UC Davis School of Medicine found that comprehensive background checks and prohibitions based on violent misdemeanors “were not associated with changes in firearm suicide or homicide.”
Aside from enabling the unacceptable deprivation of constitutional rights without due process, an Extreme Risk Protection Order (Red Flag) law is unnecessary in Virginia because the state already has strong and effective civil commitment laws.
Under Virginia law, a law enforcement officer may take an individual into emergency custody for a mental health evaluation without prior court approval. A person detained in this manner is then evaluated to determine whether they meet the criteria for a temporary detention. A person that was subject to a temporary detention order and subsequently agreed to voluntary admission to a mental health facility is prohibited from possessing firearms until their rights are restored by a court.
Tax-paying Virginians should not have to foot the bill for Northam and Bloomberg’s radical attack on their fundamental rights. Please contact Gov. Northam and let him know you oppose his unconstitutional gun control measures. You can contact Northam using the Governor's Office contact form or call his office at 804-786-2211.
Stay tuned to www.nraila.org for updates. And, in the meantime, please sign up to volunteer to help defeat Northam and Bloomberg’s gun control legislation.
About:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
Ok, so here is where things stand on this article. CourageousLion chose to call me out in his attempt to defend “DiePiggyDie”, whom he felt was an anarchist and therefore on his side. He chose to state that he “Did not see any evidence” of the case I made against “DPD”, then chose to make a personal attack void of evidence to back up his own claims. I have since extended to him a challenge that I will cite the article with “DPD’s” posts that back up what I said against him and show CourageousLion sided with and defended a… Read more »
Ok, calling it straight up. CourageousLion was apparently too frightened to take me up on my offer. Cant say it wasn’t expected/predicted.
Since he has been active within the last day on other articles, he has had time review what I wrote back in response to him. It is clear, regardless of excuses he might offer, that he wanted to run away as quickly as he could from this and hope it becomes forgotten. So much for courage.
She’s been complicit in turning Portland into an Antifa stronghold on the west coast, so she’ll feel right at home. Portland policing has become so bad that neighboring jurisdictions have canceled mutual aid agreements.
I wish they’d just come out with some factual information that new gun laws will prevent gun violence! They can’t because criminals break the law no matter what it is! Their ignorance is appalling!!!
A ban on any gun has NEVER reduced crime if anything it has increased crime. For anyone who does not understand that it takes guns out of law abiding citizens hands but NOT the outlaws hands. People who do not obey laws will not start obeying them just because they are gun laws. So it emboldens them and makes their job (murdering, robbing, stealing and burglary) much easier when only the law enforcement can have guns. Don’t we know by now law enforcement cannot be everywhere at the same time? Constitutional carry assists the law enforcement. Restrictive gun laws assists… Read more »
Arizona Don: Yes, no anti-gun law reduces crime, instead these laws enhanced crime. Criminal use of firearms provide the pretense to suppress the right to arms. This suppression is oppression. The following increase in all crimes is pretense to increase the number of enforcers of oppression. Our public servants will never attempt to actually reduce crime.
Has anyone heard about the source of the shotgun used by the killer at White Settement Texas last week.. you know, the dirtbag (thankfully now dead) who had felony records in three states, thus PROHIBITED from possession of any amrs or ammunition? Background checks worked real well for HIM< as did the laws prohibiting him from possession. If they did not work for him, on what insane conjecture do Northam and Company hold they will work for the NEXT bad guy wangint to kill a bunch of innocents? Oh, I know, cause madjick, right? Northam is the one that should… Read more »
Tionico: The source of the firearm is insignificant. The man was a member of our legally established sub-class of free citizens. Those free citizens denied the right to even access firearms. Our public servants are fully aware that a free person will be physically able to exercise the right to arms. They are fully aware that free sub-citizen can access any thing accessible to all free persons. Our public servants do not intend to reduce criminal violent use of firearms, or any criminal violence by denying any right to any free citizen. Their objective is t legally subjugate into the… Read more »
Blah blah blah we have heard time and time again all the logical arguments why gun control doesn’t work. They won’t change by repeating them over and over and over again to stupid people. If the communist Northam is increasing incarceration sites then it means he intends to establish Soviet style gulags. Time for talk is done.
@CD, I disagree. We have to keep publishing the truth or only their lies will be out their. This is the time for talk. The majority of people are seeing things our way and an election is coming up. We must rise up and vote.
@USA, I have read about those discussions, too! We need to let people know about it.
I can only pray that we (Americans) have not became so used to being controlled that we buckle under to these idiots like Northam. Are there enough courageous gun owners that will stand up against these tyrants even if it means taking up arms? I sure hope so.
@shooter, If you take up arms by yourself, you will lose and be branded a criminal. If you have a fire team, you will lose and be branded criminals. If you gather a squad, platoon, company, or battalion, you will have logistical difficulties, lose, and be branded criminals. Without the above organizations, you will be a mob, lose, and be branded criminals. So lets turn our attention to winning. With less organization, cost, and no blood shed at all, we can out vote them. The key is getting everyone to pick an “not corrupted yet” candidate in the primary election.… Read more »
Anything we say is over ruled the time to stand up is now either way we will be criminal in Northams eyes
@None
Learn some sense. Wait until you see the whites of their eyes. If we defend, we win. If we attack and oppress before they do so we lose. What we need is to follow the American Revolutionary example, not the French revolution.
@Wild Bill We can only hope that enough will stand side to side, but first we need to make sure the idiots who advocate for violence and want bloodshed don’t touch off the powder kegs before it is time. They are surely working overtime trying to right now. That being said, I don’t think ShooterOne is doing that here. If I am wrong about him, well then I misread him here, but we can wait for him to respond and clarify first. As to voting, I don’t think that will save the Republic. We are too far gone in the… Read more »
“In additional to being unconstitutional, a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms will not reduce violent crime”. A ban on commonly owned semi automatics may find them being used for another purpose… There are countless articles and commentators and pundits who fence and tangle, who tumble and roll the slogans and platitudes of gun control, civilian disarmament, public safety, gun violence epidemics, commonsense restrictions, loopholes, Second Amendment rights and other sophisticated and nuanced and ultimately irrelevant sophistries that dance around and completely avoid the blunt and brutally honest point of lethal, military grade weapons in the hands of civilians. They are… Read more »
Citizens must see that elected servants are bound by the chains of the Republics Constitution. Any person advocating gun control, gun registration, etc., of law abiding citizens, does not deserve to be an elected representative.They are there to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Period….
The NRA has done nothing to help Virginia with the 2A sanctuary movement. Now, instead of joining with the grassroots movement and VCDL, they decide to have their own rally the week before lobby day. The NRA has failed, again. Bunch of self absorbed losers.
You’re being kind. This has been SOP for the NRA for years. They’ve jumped in at the 11th hour to take credit for work done by others. Want your money to work for us instead of for Wayne Lapierre and his cronies’ lavish lifestyles? Second Amendment Foundation takes the illegal gun grabbers to court…and wins.
JOIN the GOA, they get involved at all levels.
I am a current member of the NRA and I agree with this post. I would love to see Wayne LaPierre voted out, and the NRA become much more active against gun control and less active at asking it’s members for more money. Yes, I realize it takes money to fight them. Wonder what they would do if every gun owner in America were to march on Washington D.C.? Someone has got to act now, I am 77 years old and am no longer able to do as much. I have wondered for probably at least the last 50 years… Read more »
‘Gun control” and gun bans are NOT about controlling crimes or murders. Nor are gun bans about making people ‘safe’.
It is ALL ABOUT making slaves of the American People.
An ARMED man is a free man. A disarmed man is a sheep.
In ALL of the history of the world, since the beginning of time, when people are disarmed, they are then murdered. Governments always murder their own, sooner or later. Governments have murdered more people that all the deaths in all wars combined.
Exactly. The government is displaying its fear of citizens and desire to render them compliant.
In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court ruled that, “The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government.” The second amendment did not grant a new right, but enshrined and protected a pre-existing right.
Compliant?,I have your COMPLIANT.
Yes and actually every restrictive gun law ever passed has been an infringement and therefore unconstitutional!
Admit it…we are a nation of armed slaves. Slaves have other people decide what they can eat, drink or smoke. Slaves have the fruits of their labor stolen from them in the way of “income taxes”. Slaves pay rent to the county in the way of “property taxes” on the homes they “think” they own. Slaves have to purchase building permits to add to or remodel “their” homes. Slaves have to ask permission to carry concealed firearms. Slaves have to be good slaves to be able to stay armed in the first place. And frankly…THE SLAVES ARE WAKING UP TO… Read more »
And justifiably so.
Northam is fixing to find that out.
In the 19th Century peoples own governments disarmed them first and the proceeded to MURDER over 100 million of their own.
What you say here is absolutely true. I have been preaching what happened in the twentieth century for years now. Over 170 million (yes that is hundreds of millions) of people were murdered by their own governments during that bloody century throughout Europe and Asia. However, our educational system stopped teaching those things (including the Holocaust) during the 60’s here in the US. That is also when the infiltration of our education system began by these communists.
I would say Public schools may have quit teaching history. I went to a private Catholic school. We were taught. We even watched a movie of the holocaust. Where they were burying naked starved bodies with bulldozers into ditches. Today it would scar their poor little minds (PTSD). It made a lasting impression on me. They will not take my firearms.
No one cared while people that don’t look, think, speak or act like the stereotypical American gun owner were having, and continue to have, all their other Constitutional rights violated daily. Now all of a sudden because the infringement is happening to YOU regarding something YOU perceive as important it’s a big deal. I said it before and I’ll say it again: You people (and I mean that exactly how it sounds) are going to pay the price for licking all those boots for decades as long as the enemy of your enemy was your friend and was keeping those… Read more »
@DiePiggyDie You’re a retarded crybaby who got upset last time you showed up here talking about killing cops, then when you got out argued and out classed you threatened to call the FBI on Ammoland staff. lol So take your racist BS and get out of here. You’re nothing more than a propagandist stooge sent here to cause problems, and since you cant argue about facts, what laws are actually legal or not here in this country, instead all you have is race baiting. So no, we wont be paying any price, we will just be defending our rights alongside… Read more »
To be fair, although I have many things to disagree with Die Piggy Die on;we should NOT lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of gun control laws had as part of their origins an intent to disarm and disenfranchise various ethnic and racial groups deemed ” other” .
Sometimes it was class/money. Others, race/ethnic/national origins(hello Sullivan Act).
Not defending DPD,but if in making sure that no one loses sight of the key point he gets a LITTLE cover ;so be it.
Greg, completely false. After the Democratic CSA was defeated, our Constitution was amended to protect the rights of all, including minorities. The Democrats then passed the Jim Crow laws denying the right to vote and firearm ownership for blacks. Then when the blacks again fought back, the Democrats had a program, “Massive Resistance”, to deny their rights again. Now they are using “gun control” to prevent minorities from firearm ownership. As we see in the most restrictive states, minority and female ownership of firearms is very low. The reviled old, white men comprise the vast majority of firearm owners in… Read more »
The old guy in Maryland wasn’t a minority from what I can tell. He was killed because he defended his right to keep and bear arms with his LIFE which is something most of you lemmings won’t be doing. How do I know? Because you’re afraid to lose your home to the IRS if you don’t pay them their extortion fees. So you’ll be more then afraid to lose your lives.
@Heed – You say that you disagree with @Greg. However you then list ways in which gun control was used to assist in controlling minorities. Unlike DPD – most cops I’ve spoken with theoretically disagree with most proposed gun control. Many would actively oppose it at some point, much as so many VA Sheriffs are doing. Unfortunately I suspect majority will “just do their jobs” which was formerly known as “following orders”. Nuremburg pretty well established precedence that this is no excuse – but we will be forced to do the work of figuring out who is who rather than… Read more »
How many here were even born when that took place(1911!)or were old enough to anything about it?.
VERY few if any.If they were that old they couldn’t read this article anyway.
That’s like blaming people for slavery that are four generations away from the fact.
@Greg Sadly, I was at work and could not reply to you, but several others did and made some very valid points. That being said, there is something you should know about me. I have written here before about what the Democrat party has in the past tried to do in terms of infringing and restricting the rights of minorities. One such example was their efforts in the 1970’s to ban so called “Saturday night specials”, the assault weapon of the day if you forgive the parlance. Their goal at the time was to restrict availability of low cost defensive… Read more »
Funny, I don’t read any of what you post about DPD in this post of his. You just must not like his anarchist way of thinking. WE DON’T NEED police. WE NEED THE MILITIA reestablished so that we the people can take care of “law enforcement” via COMMON LAW. Not the UCC Code that makes smoking an herb a “crime”. And maybe he is a farmer and has had problems with killing a pig to butcher.LOL!
Oh, and someone calling himself “TheRevelator” isn’t a propagandist stooge. LOL!
@Courageous Lion. Ok, so I’ll give you a chance. His posts are still up, Dave in Fairfax was nice enough to make sure of that. So if I find that article, and post the link here so you can go back and read what DPD was doing, will you have the balls to admit you were wrong here? So what is it going to be, the courageous lion, or the Cowardly lion? I’ve been here a lot longer than you, so I don’t need to worry about someone who is trying to confuse the militia with vigilantism. My record is… Read more »
Oh wow, there is one of those negative votes Lion was so eager to get. I wonder if he perhaps put it there.
So no Response from Lion. I think we should give him at least another day before we conclude that perhaps he wet himself and ran away from a challenge.
I see that DPD has garnered 11 down votes. I’m jealous! That means he pissed off a bunch of armed lemmings. The graphic he posted is the TRUTH people. WTFU! They are also the same people that will cage you for smoking an herb. Cage you for having possession of a short barrel rifle that you didn’t jump through hoops and pay a fee to own. The same people that will kick your door down in the middle of the night to enforce a “red flag law” on your dumb asses. Now, PLEAZZZEEEEEE help me here. I want to see… Read more »
@CourageousLion I didn’t write this last night as I wanted to see if the coward DPD would still bite, so let me offer this up as a little bit of advice for you. Don’t you think its strange that the Law Enforcement in Virginia who you and DPD are trying to claim are going to be overwhelmingly behind the efforts to come take away our rights are in fact the same ones standing side by side with the residents in the counties and helping lead the sanctuary movement against the government? Now you want to tell people to “Wake The… Read more »
Challenge has been issued, and thus far no response. I have the Article on which the previous posts by DPD were made ready to go. I can cite and directly quote at any time and everyone here can look to see who is telling the truth.
So that begs the question. Where did CourageousLion run off to after calling me out? I’m here and waiting for a response. Oh, unless he has the same excuse of not showing up for court dates as Hunter Biden…. 🙂
I think some of the problem may be the difference between elected LEO as to state run LEO. I haven’t seen many state police come out & say they will stand with the people. If I’m wrong. Please correct me. I’m sure it’s better they remain quiet at this time, for job sake. Just to pay the bills to the SHTF. Until then we will not know who stands where. I can’t fault them silence is a good judgement call right now.
@Arny Now that was a contemplative and worthwhile comment. Not only are you offering both views, calling for waiting for facts before making your decision. 🙂 CourageousLion could learn a lot from you. Indeed, the elected law enforcement are leading the charge for preserving rights and standing with their constituents. However, the early assessment is that the idiot Governor called a bluff for the National Guard to be used. That tells us a few things. One, that he is not very confident that the State managed leo’s will be behind him on that, and two that the historical trend of… Read more »
YOU people?, aren’t you ONE of the people, or are you a butting in Foreigner?
It’s YOUR Right too.(Unless you’re not a citizen.)
It’s a NATURAL right extended to anyone alive. Not just us special US slaves.
They aren’t interested in “public safety”, that’s a ruse. They’re interested in disarming America for tyrannical purposes and Virginia is a test case. Hey, governor blackface, have you looked at your state flag lately?
Look closely Northam. Me thinks it’s a prediction of what’s to come.
The one on the ground resembles Northam, and he is wearing his “moonwalk” boots and everything! The moron almost demonstrated his Michael Jackson skills but his wife shut it down. That would have been comic relief for the ages.
Personally myself, I have never gone blackface to any gathering but I did the best I could. I didn’t have to do anything to make her look like she just kicked him in the berries.