McAuliffe has decided that Virginia has a public health crisis when it comes to criminal violence. For him and the rest of Virginia’s gun control politicians, there’s never a problem with rising crime, lack of police resources or willingness to actually prosecute criminals. McAuliffe is proving that gun control politicians know only one cure. Take the blue pill of more gun control.
With less than a month to go before Old Dominion voters head into the voting booth, McAuliffe conflates crime with public health, co-opting the use of emergency health measures to enact radical gun control. That includes McAuliffe’s demand that Modern Sporting Rifle (MSRs) and standard capacity magazines must be banned.
“It’s time to Ban the Sale of Assault Weapons, Close Loopholes, and Treat Gun Violence as a Public Health Epidemic,” reads McAuliffe’s campaign website.
Overseeing this, of course, would be McAuliffe’s “Virginia Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” a comfortable taxpayer-funded cushion for McAuliffe’s gun control backers to gin up new ways to deny Virginians their God-given rights protected not only by the U.S. Constitution but the Commonwealth’s Constitution.
Order it Twice
McAuliffe’s “plan” reads like an a la carte gun control menu. In addition to banning MSRs and magazines, he wants to “strengthen” Virginia’s background checks, without explaining what’s left to strengthen since the state already has a universal background check law. He makes a similar demand of wanting a new law where one already exists by demanding local municipalities should be able to create their own gun control measures. Virginia already did that when it repealed the state pre-emption law.
He would also ban so-called “ghost guns,” or home-built firearms. Never mind that it has been legal in Virginia since it was a colony to make your own firearm. What he’s really aiming to do is regulate the sale of precursor parts. That would mean nearly any part of a firearm could be labeled a “firearm,” itself requiring background checks and onerous restrictions and regulations on small business owners and gun owners just to repair or improve a firearm. It doesn’t matter that an individual prohibited from legally purchasing a firearm is also prohibited from possessing one – even one that is self-assembled.
Crisis Over Governing
McAuliffe’s gun control plan doesn’t sound like much of a plan. It is an excuse to infringe on Virginians’ constitutionally protected gun rights of those who obey the law and ignores failing policies that defunded police and let criminals run rampant with no accountability.
McAuliffe continues to demonize the MSR, or AR-15 rifle, using the gun control invented trope “assault weapon” to describe these popular, commonly owned rifles. It doesn’t matter to him that the just-released FBI Uniform Crime Report shows murder skyrocketing 29 percent in the United States. It also showed that knives were used 3.5 times as often in murders than rifles of all types. Virginia State Police reported that murder in the state reached the highest levels seen since the 1990s. Police reported 537 homicides in 2020, up from 455 in 2019, an 18 percent increase in just one year.
McAuliffe’s gun control crisis plan also masks the failing policies that are contributing to Virginia’s crime problem. Richmond’s progressive, Democratic-controlled city council slashed $3 million from the police budget, eliminated 12 positions at the same time murders in the capital city jumped 40 percent over a year ago.
McAuliffe’s answer isn’t to end the insanity of yanking police off the streets. He wants to double down. McAuliffe accepted the endorsement of a group that support police defunding. He dressed down a room full of law enforcement for questing his position and willingness to accept endorsements from groups that demand police be defunded and prisons be abolished. “I don’t care what you believe,” McAuliffe said.
When candidates for office put on blinders and declare God-given rights are secondary to self-declared “crises,” voters have to scratch their heads and wonder why the proposed cure doesn’t even address the symptoms. McAuliffe’s blue pill of gun control only serves his radical gun control agenda.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
I have warned about this for years before the scamdemic and once people started allowing their rights to be trampled with unconstitutional rules put out by unelected bureaucrats in the name of ‘safety and health’ it was obvious that the 2A would be the next target.
the numbers of people harmed by government actions dwarfs any sickened, small businesses destroyed , this is not about covid it is about power look at the governments around the world attacking their people people they disarmed in the past 20 years , our government is trying the same. the 1918 flu killed 10.2% of the world population in 26 weeks healthy people this is killing people who would not have made it to reproduce in 1900 the comparison is apples and grapes there was a program on pbs a nova show what made the 1918 flu so deadly, they… Read more »
It’s isn’t “Gun Violence”. It is “Defective Citizen Violence.” Maybe there should be parenting licensing, propagation background checks, parenting classes with demonstrated competencies, and liability for producing defective offspring.
“Killing is a matter of will, not weapons.
You cannot control the act itself
by passing laws about the means employed.”
The late Col Jeff Cooper, 1958,
Handgun expert and founder of Gunsite Academy
Politicians with laws never stop bad guys with a guns.
They only control the good guys, which is their true agenda.
The upcoming Virginia election, like every other election nowadays, will be rigged. Its the only way they can win, and they certainly can’t afford to lose. We are dealing with communists here. That in and of itself explains everything. Wake up America.
Not to mention the sad fact that 13% of the population has whined and bitched and desecrated the monuments to True American Hero’s and forced the removal of those same monuments! Virginia and most of America has turned into Bizarro World!
God help us all!
In the Old Dominion we are seeing the Great Sort work itself out in real time. Having spent some time there years ago I remember the Old Virginia, a mostly rural and suburban place populated by loads of miltary folks and rural raised natives. The change came as the federal government and the rent seeking consultant classes blew up in size and power during the 1980’s and now dominate the once clearly conservative state and local politics. That being said we are now seeing the Great Sort work itself out in real time.The self reliant population has been overwhelmed by… Read more »
Tyrannical poIiticians are a virus and a threat to heaIth. They must be purged.
Hope this POS Gov. gets fired in November.
Welcome to the era of openly and obviously rigged elections. You may not like it.
. . . and Youngkin refuses to even talk about “GUN CONTROL” . . . so it is not even an issue in this race.
OH!!! DON’T GET ME WRONG! IF McAULIFFE WINS – VA WILL LIVE UNDER NY SAFE ACT RESTRICTIONS!
Welcome to NY! Bye-Bye FREEDOM!
Hey, maybe you’ll only have to REGISTER those evil rifles, for “safety”, to the State’s CONFISCATION DATABASE!
. . . but it’s not worth talking about . . . not an issue to press.
(The NY SAFE Act has a 4% compliance rate)