Virginia Democrat Unveils Permit-to-Purchase Bill

Virginians are getting ready for another potential Snowmageddon this weekend, with parts of the Old Dominion expecting up to two feet of snow (including the part of Virginia that I call home). Another threat is looming on the horizon, though, and this one has nothing to do with the weather. 

Democrat Del. Patrick Hope, who represents a deep-blue district in northern Virginia, has unveiled his permit-to-purchase bill, and it threatens to upend Virginia’s gun laws. 

HB 1359 requires any person purchasing a firearm from an FFL to present a “valid firearm purchaser license issued by the Department of State Police that allows the holder to purchase a firearm.” 

The bill prohibits a firearms dealer from selling, renting, trading, or transferring from his inventory any firearm to any person until he has received such permit. The bill sets forth the procedures to apply for the permit and prohibits the permitting of any person who (i) is younger than 21 years of age; (ii) is prohibited from purchasing, possessing, or transporting a firearm; (iii) within the two years prior to the date of application, has been convicted of any offense against a person that is an act of violence, force, or threat or a firearm-related offense that is punished as a Class 1 misdemeanor; or (iv) within the two years prior to the date of application, has not completed a firearms safety or training course or class offered to the public by a law-enforcement agency, institution of higher education, or private or public institution or organization or by a firearms training school utilizing instructors certified or approved by the Department of Criminal Justice Services and with a required curriculum, detailed in the bill. The bill provides that such firearm purchaser license is valid for five years from the date of issuance.

The bill would negate the Second Amendment rights of young adults by making it impossible for them to purchase any kind of firearm at retail. And with Virginia Democrats also expected to adopt a “universal” background check requirement, Hope’s permit-to-purchase would likely encompass private transfers of firearms as well, since they’ll have to go through an FFL. 

Additionally, the bill would the bill requires the State Police to “keep and maintain a computerized database containing certain enumerated information, which may be made available to institutions of higher education and other research organizations or institutions in the Commonwealth upon request and sets out exceptions for to whom its provisions should apply.” In other words, a database of Virginia gun owners that would be open to anti-gun academics and “research” organizations. 

California already has a law like this in place, and it allows anti-gun researchers access to a gun owner’s name, social security number, address, place of birth, phone number, occupation, driver’s license or ID number, race, sex, height, weight, hair color, eye color, and the types of firearms they own. 

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld California’s law, but if HB 1359 is signed into law by Abigail Spanberger it would face an immediate challenge, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Virginia, has previously held that “individuals have a constitutional right to privacy for information for which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy,” though the court must decide “whether the government has a compelling interest in disclosure that outweighs the individual’s privacy interest.” 

It’s not hard to imagine the court concluding that the government’s interest in conducting “gun violence research” trumps a gun owner’s right to privacy, especially given the Fourth Circuit’s recent rulings upholding gun bans for under-21s as well as Maryland’s ban on “assault weapons,” and it’s own permit-to-purchase law. 

Gun sales in the Old Dominion have already been brisk since Democrats won big in last November’s elections, but HB 1359 is likely to push those sales into overdrive. This is a permit-to-purchase, not a permit-to-own (though that’s probably not too far away), and Virginians who’ve been on the fence about purchasing a firearm now have extra incentive to do it before Democrats enact this atrocious bill into law. 

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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