The Virginian-Pilot
©
RICHMOND
In 1993, Virginia had an unflattering reputation as a state frequented by gun runners with a capital city plagued by street violence when the state legislature limited handgun purchases to one per month.
Now, nearly 20 years later, a new generation in the General Assembly is poised to repeal the restriction that's long bothered gun-rights advocates.
The Virginia Senate on Monday approved legislation to strike the handgun law on a 21-19 vote, a critical development in the effort to undo a policy whose days appear numbered.
Companion legislation already has cleared the Republican-run House of Delegates, where it has won past support only to stall in the Senate when it was under Democratic control.
But this year, with Senate Republicans holding an effective majority, there were just enough votes to get it out of the chamber.
Gov. Bob McDonnell, who supported the handgun limit as a Virginia Beach legislator, has said he will sign legislation to overturn it.
The Senate version passed Monday with support from two western Virginia Democrats: Sens. Creigh Deeds of Bath County and John Edwards of Roanoke.
Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, a James City County Republican, was the lone member of his party opposing repeal.
He backed the handgun limit in 1993 and didn't want to support its dismantling, although he said that present-day background checks and tougher penalties for gun crimes lessen the need for it.
Praise for the vote on SB323 came from Virginia Citizens Defense League president Philip Van Cleave, a gun enthusiast who is a fixture in the legislature's halls.
"The albatross is almost dead," Van Cleave crowed in an e-mail sent moments after the Monday afternoon vote.
Gun-control activists fired back, expressing disappointment.
"Virginia has had more than its share of horrific tragedies perpetrated by criminals with easy access to firearms," said Lori Haas, whose daughter, Emily, survived the 2007 shooting massacre at Virginia Tech.
"It is a sad day when our legislators purposely make it easier for gun traffickers to do their dirty business."
Haas singled out Edwards, whose district includes Tech's Blacksburg campus.
The Roanoke senator said his vote is consistent with his views on gun rights and reflects his constituents' feelings on the issue.
He defended his record by citing mental health law reforms he pushed after the Tech tragedy. He remains opposed to stripping colleges of the power to restrict guns on campus.
Stumping for his bill, Sen. Charles "Bill" Carrico Sr. said the policy only affects responsible gun owners and doesn't deter criminals from obtaining firearms.
Carrico, R-Grayson County, said only three other states have similar handgun laws: California, Maryland and New Jersey.
Virginia's law features various exemptions, including one for the more than 270,000 citizens with concealed weapons permits.
Senate Democratic Leader Richard Saslaw of Fairfax County urged his colleagues to oppose repeal, saying that a Virginian could have legally amassed more than 200 handguns in the years since the limit was approved.
If a person needs more weapons than that, he said, "something has gone terribly wrong in your life."
Later Monday, gun-rights enthusiasts won one and lost one in a House subcommittee.
Del. Rich Anderson's bill, HB1052, to allow firearms and other weapons in airport terminals was approved and now advances to the full House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee.
The panel overrode objections from gun-control groups and airport representatives who said allowing guns in terminals would generate fear and apprehension among the traveling public.
"I don't think this is the message that Virginia wants to send," said Bill Axselle, a lobbyist for Richmond International Airport.
Anderson, R-Prince William County, likened an airport terminal to a shopping mall. "An individual ought to be able to exercise their Second Amendment rights there just as they can in any other public place," he said.
The panel took a dimmer view of Del. Bob Marshall's bill, HB91, which would have allowed college professors with concealed-handgun permits to carry their weapons on campus, overriding gun bans now in place at most state colleges and universities.
The measure was rejected after a roomful of university representatives rose to oppose it.
"I urge the panel to leave guns only in the hands of campus police officers," Virginia Commonwealth University police Chief John Venuti said.
"The students and faculty I have spoken with do not want more guns on campus."
Marshall, R-Prince William County, said armed professors might have been able to save the lives of the 32 students killed in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.
"They relied on the campus police, and they're not here today," he said.
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At least if they are passing
At least if they are passing trivial legislation like this they aren't doing worse damage. Next, they should pass laws declaring the rebel flag the state flag or a resolution that intergalactic laws can't be reference in our court system.
For the Liberals who don't get it
It is not a matter of whether we NEED to buy more than one handgun a month.
If you have nothing to hide, do you still object to a warrantless search of your home, car or person?
If you are not a fugitive, to you object to a policeman stopping you at random and demanding to see your 'papers?'
If you don't, you are giving away your Constitutional rights for expedience. You may not need those rights today, but if you fail to assert them, they won't be there if you do need them someday.
Its the same thing. I am not selling guns to criminals. I have nothing to hide. To limit my choices because someone else does those things is no different from warrantless searches or random identity stops.
Only a poor citizen would fail to object.
I don't think they should limit gun purchases
so long as each weapon's serial number is registered with the owner's name and address.
With a background check validating the holder of the proffered ID as being who he is and not a felon, then let him buy a case of pistols.
Then if the guns show up in crimes, we'll know who to talk to first and have them at least answer how the weapon left their custody.
We can't vote without registering our name and address, and in some states, your party affiliation.
And now we require a photo ID to back that up.
Voting and gun ownership are both constitutional rights. They should at least abide by the same rules to avoid fraudulent exercise of those rights.
Registration has always been a percursor to confiscation
In Nazi Germany, Australia, and even California for ugly rifles(mistakenly called assault rifles,) promises that registration was just for law and order purposes were all followed by confiscation.
If you really want to see what the 2nd Amendment is for, just try registering guns in America.
You can do better than that.
"Pry my gun from my cold dead fingers"
Unfortunately, that happens in this country more than anywhere in the industrialized world.
The problem we have is not that law abiding citizens have guns, but that in order to avoid registration, we are flooding the market anonymously so everyone has one and then we find the criminals after they kill or rob.
Essentially, citizens must be sacrificed first, before we deny ownership to those whose purposes are nefarious.
I have faith that confiscation will not be an issue in the US for a long time.
We have a love affair with weapons that is only surpassed by the car.
But to keep saturating the market with unaccounted for weaponry for untrained citizens is just nuts.
Well, then
I'll be a nut, but I won't be a slave.
Australians are not slaves either
Any Australian can own a gun, they just have some restrictions and require registration.
Last I checked, they are not a dictatorship.
Yep
Precursors to the genocides of the 20th century? Gun registration, then gun confiscation.
No thank you.
Been there. Done that. Have too many family members with the t-shirt.
Never again.
I don't know you or your history
and it is none of my business.
But you brought up Nazi Germany. As did Don before you.
There is nothing going on in this country that would remotely put us in that frame of governance.
Not leadership, not form of government, not framework, not economics, not position in the world nor even a Prussian cultural history.
We are flooding the country with anonymous weaponry, much in the hands of those who would do us harm.
That is a greater threat than a modern day Hitler. The few neo-Nazis we have are out in public and a joke.
The idea that now a straw purchaser can go to WalMart and buy 100 pistols on a clean driver's license and sell them without any trace as to ownership is even more of a threat.
Just ask...
some of the people in New Orleans that had their guns confiscated after Hurricane Katrina by the National Guard because Ray Nagin didn't want anyone to be able to defend themselves. Most of them still haven't gotten them back. He and the Guard violated the 2nd Amendment and 4th Amendment of illegal search and seizure. i'll keep my guns you don't have to own one if you don't want one, just leave mine alone.