From the VCDL Legislative Alerts:
stay safe.
skidmark
Tonight the Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee heard
several gun bills and here are the results:
HB 162, Delegate Lingamfelter, allows a person to have a firearm
locked in their vehicle in private parking lots. The bill was
amended to exempt vehicles owned by a company or parking lots that
had gates and/or guards that limited public access. I spoke in favor
of the bill. The bill PASSED out of subcommittee and is now on its
way to the full committee! Whaa Hooo!
HB 705, Delegate Hogan, a bill to take away the ability of a county
to regulate discharge of firearms and hunting without any
grandfathering was withdrawn by Delegate Hogan. This was not a
surprise. He still had HB 704 (next).
HB 704, Delegate Hogan, a bill to take away the ability of a county
to regulate discharge of firearms or hunting and preempts all
discharge/hunting ordinances passed after 1995. The bill was
modified. The modification allows counties to ban hunting within 1/2
mile of a subdivision (as they currently already can do). It also
let the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) set statewide
uniform standards for hunting and discharge. A county could petition
DGIF for special concessions. I spoke as being generally in favor of
the bill, except I noted that I did not like DGIF setting discharge
standards for fear that they would have the unelected power to ban
all discharge if they were ever under an anti-gun administration!
Dennis O'Connor spoke and made the great point that his county,
Prince George, removed all discharged ordinances and let state law
rule. The idea, and the committee seem receptive, was to let state
law on discharge preempt local ordinances, period.
A lot of counties spoke against the bill and a few Hanover residents
did as well. Delegates Hogan, Griffith and Lingamfelter made some
powerful points about the protected rights of gun owners vs the
tyranny of the many. Delegate Hogan pointed out that local
governments had been abusing their power over discharging firearms
lately and this needs to stop and that his bill is aimed at doing
just that!
I wanted to cheer, but I couldn't ;-)
The bill was passed by for a week to give DGIF a chance to prepare
comments on the bill, since the bill will definitely affect the
department. It also gives the committee time to rethink discharge of
firearms being controlled by the DGIF.
Passing it by for the week made good sense.
HB 794, Delegate Hogan, a bill to prohibit the police returning a gun
with a altered serial number to its owner was discussed. Delegate
Hogan said that he wasn't sure who asked him to put the bill in. He
also said he was concerned with some points I had discussed with him
yesterday about the bill having some severe problems.
(Yesterday, Board member Jim Kadison talked to the BATFE and asked
them if there was a mechanism to lawfully restore a serial number on
a gun where the serial number had been altered. The answer was YES!
Therefore, the gun was still able to be possessed by the owner if the
gun was sent by the police to the manufacturer and the manufacturer
put the serial number back on the gun! This avoids the gun owner
getting victimized twice - once by the criminal and once by the
police not returning his gun! Keep in mind that some guns can cost
well over $20,000! I had shared this with Delegate Hogan.)
Delegate Hogan asked for me to explain my concerns to the committee.
After my explanation, the committee, with Delegate Hogan's blessing,
decided to pass the bill by indefinitely ("PBI") - which means that
the bill is DEAD.
I would like to thank Delegate Hogan for letting the bill go as soon
as he learned that firearms could be reserialized and returned to
their rightful owners.
The committee rolled HB 1024, Delegate Hurt's bill the keep the
government from disarming us in an emergency or disaster, into
Delegate Janis' much stronger version - HB 1265 (next). This was
exactly what I hoped they would do.
I spoke in favor of Delegate Janis' HB 1265, providing the metaphor
that New Orleans let it citizens have umbrellas until it started to
rain at which time New Orleans confiscated those umbrellas.
The bill passed unanimously out of subcommittee and is on its way to
the full committee, probably next week!!!
An excellent night for Virginia's gun owners and liberty!
--
ACTION ITEM!
Click on each of the three links below to send a pre-written message
to YOUR Delegate in support of HB370, HB162, and HB1265. You can
customize the message if you like. You will need to fill in your
name/address/optional phone number the first time only. The computer
will figure out who your Delegate is based on your address and will
send it to him or her:
http://www2.vcdl.org/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/vcdl/reflector.html?REF=MyDelegate&PRE=HB370-1
http://www2.vcdl.org/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/vcdl/reflector.html?REF=MyDelegate&PRE=HB162-1
http://www2.vcdl.org/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/vcdl/reflector.html?REF=MyDelegate&PRE=HB1265-1
--
In a strange twist, Delegate Jack Reid had an unintended discharge
while unloading his Kel-tec .380 in the General Assembly Building
today! No one was hurt and the bullet was stopped by a bulletproof
vest hanging on his door. (The vest had been given to him as a joke
by a policeman - but fate had a more important use for it.)
This is exactly why the restaurant ban has to go. The more you
needlessly handle a gun, the more the chance of an unintended
discharge. Ideally we should just be able to put on our protection
in the morning and not touch it until we remove it that night. The
restaurant ban constantly interferes with that simple plan by making
many people handle their gun so that the gun can be left in the car.
Even for those of us that open carry instead, we may have to handle a
gun so that we can switch from a concealed-carry holster to an
open-carry holster.
That's silly - let's get rid the much hated restaurant ban THIS year!
VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL).
VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to
defending the human rights of all Virginians. The membership considers the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms to be an essential human right.
VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org
stay safe.
skidmark
