Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger ran as a moderate Democrat. She made a lot of campaign promises and has already turned her back on pretty much all of them. Rather than focusing on affordability, as she and her fellow Dems promised, they immediately went to work on gerrymandering the state and passing gun control.
They gerrymandering thing blew up in their faces, but gun control? They can still do that, for now at least, and Spanberger took the last step on two controversial measures.
That’s right, Virginia has an assault weapon ban and a magazine limit.
irginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed into law Thursday a ban on the sale of assault firearms and high-capacity magazines, while allowing people who already own them to keep them.
The law makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor to import, sell, manufacture, purchase, or transfer an assault firearm. Anyone convicted of that violation is prohibited from purchasing, possessing, or transporting any firearm for three years from the date of conviction.
The ban does not apply to certain weapons including antique firearms or firearms that have been rendered permanently inoperable.
Spanberger had proposed amendments to the legislation, but it was rejected by lawmakers during the April reconvened session. Her options at that point were to veto the legislation, let it become law without her signature, or sign it into law.
“I am signing this bill into law because firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets. We are taking this step to protect families and support the law enforcement officers who work every day to keep our communities safe,” said Spanberger in a statement to CBS 6. “While the General Assembly chose not to adopt my amendment that specifically carves out certain firearms frequently used for hunting, I will work with the patrons to clarify this language.”
If there’s any good news to this, it’s that this ban is one that relies on “evil features” rather than banning gas-operated semi-automatic firearms, but that’s not any consolation.
I find it interesting that these weapons are just too awful to be on our streets, but they made it a misdemeanor to be caught with one. A felony would make someone prohibited from owning guns at all, which is in line with what the anti-gunners who run Virginia seem to prefer.
Regardless, this is still a stupid move, and one that isn’t likely to accomplish anything.
Plus, let’s be real here, that magazine ban is completely unenforceable. While firearms are serialized, which means authorities can find out when they were made and initially sold, magazines aren’t. There’s literally no way to tell when, say, a Glock 17 magazine was manufactured unless it’s an aftermarket one by a company that didn’t exist before the ban went into effect. Maybe.
That doesn’t touch on the constitutional issues with a ban like this, which are very real.
The NRA and other groups have already filed lawsuits.
The truth of the matter is that the worst mass shooting in Virginia history happened at Virginia Tech. The killer didn’t use an AR-15 or functionally similar rifle. He used a couple of handguns, and the fact that there was no one readily available to take him down before he could kill as many people as possible.
Spanberger and her buddies have done nothing to protect the people of Virginia. Instead, she just made them less safe, at least until the NRA wins its lawsuit.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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