VCC Magazine Fall 2019

V irginia C apitol C onnections , F all 2019 8 the U.S. in 2016 there were a total of 374 murders using a rifle, all rifles, and not just an “assault rifle”. That is fewer murders than those caused using hands and feet (656), blunt objects (472), or knives (1,604). For Virginia the numbers were 10 murders with a rifle (all rifles), 30 with hands and feet, and 33 with knives. AR-15 rifles are excellent self-defense firearms. That’s why they are the most common rifles in police inventories. Handgun rationing – both Virginia and South Carolina repealed their one-handgun-a-month law as ineffective. It was. The law did not reduce the number of guns that were illegally sold in other states, but it did complicate the lives of law-abiding gun owners who wanted to purchase multiple handguns in a month Enable local gun control – Virginia used to allow localities to pass their own gun control and the result was chaos. A law-abiding citizen had no way to be sure he wasn’t breaking some arcane ordinance in each locality he passed through as he traveled the state. Even the police often weren’t sure about local gun-control ordinances. In 2004 state preemption was passed and overnight it became easy for citizens to ensure they followed the law, as they only had to learn state gun laws, not a myriad of hard-to-find local gun laws. Now let’s look at some changes to laws that will help save lives: Eliminate public “gun-free zones” – 90 percent of public mass- shootings since 1950 have been in gun-free zones. That makes perfect sense. It is much easier to attack helpless victims than ones who can fight back. Taking away our right to protect ourselves does not make us safer. Disarming someone only emboldens an attacker. Allow state and local government employees who have a concealed handgun permit to carry concealed while at work . Bedford County has such a policy and if Virginia Beach did before the Building No. 2 massacre earlier this year, there’s a good chance the murderer would not have even tried his attack as he would have had no idea who was armed. If he did attack, he most likely would have been stopped before many lives had been taken. Allow concealed handgun permit holders to carry wherever an off-duty police officer can carry. Citizens should have the same right to self-defense everywhere, regardless of occupation. Bottom line: Preserve our freedom. Don’t hinder or obstruct our right to self-defense. Get those needing mental-health treatment the help they need. And keep the truly dangerous people locked up, away from the rest of us, so they can do no harm. Philip Van Cleave is president of Virginia Citizen Defense League. Amendment to oppose measures aimed at reducing gun violence which would not take away the right of a law-abiding person to keep and bear arms, must not understand the true meaning or purpose of the Second Amendment. The recent increase in frequency and severity of mass shootings highlights the fact that assault weapons, fitted with large capacity magazines, are becoming the weapons of choice for gunmen who wish to shoot large numbers of people at one time. Taking into account both the ability to create large numbers of victims and the fact that the increase physical damage that comes from extremely high velocity rounds, assault weapons produce a level of lethality closely akin to that of fully automatic machine guns, which have been heavily regulated since the 1930’s. It is also very difficult to imagine a scenario where a civilian would need the ability to kill or maim so many victims in a few minutes, that fits the definition of a “legal activity”. If the weapons cannot be banned outright, then they should at least be regulated under the National Firearms Act in the same manner as machine guns. The people of Virginia deserve to be given the opportunity to benefit from the same reductions in gun deaths and injuries that other states have experienced after they adopted preventive legislation, all of which have withstood challenges in court and have been found to be Constitutional. Virginia cannot afford another 12-year experiment of doing nothing while the death toll continues to rise. The time has come to realize that “thoughts and prayers” are a natural reaction to the horror of gun violence, but they do nothing to reduce the likelihood of that violence continuing to take a staggering toll of harm in our Commonwealth. Andrew L. Goddard is President of the Richmond Chapter of the Million Mom March against gun violence and Legislative Director of the Virginia Center for Public Safety. His interest in mental health issues, as well as gun safety, came about as a result of his son’s injuries sustained in the Virginia Tech tragedy of 2007. More gun control will not make us safer from page 7 A multifaceted strategy is needed from page 7 Sunday, 9:30 AM – VPM (Richmond, Charlottesville & Harrisonburg) Sunday, 10 AM – Blue Ridge PBS 15.1 (Roanoke & Lynchburg) Tuesday, 5 PM – WHRO-World (Norfolk) Wednesday, 8:30 PM – Southwest VA PTV 15.2 (Roanoke & Lynchburg) Thursday, 5:30 PM – WHRO-World (Norfolk) Check the schedules of additional stations: ARC TV (Southwest) Norfolk’s Network , TV-48 Suffolk Network , TV-190 Weekly show information is on Facebook— THIS WEEK IN RICHMOND Past shows may be seen on vpm.org/watch/this-week-in-richmond V I E W I N G S C H E D U L E Virginia Capitol Connections 201 9 Download the Virginia Capitol Connections App Today! virginiaredbook.com V V