Loudoun supervisors to discuss gun laws following incident in Aldie

fred55 said:

Agreed, however, with urban sprawl at what point does simply the sound of firearms become an issue. Living in a rural area for decades and sudden sprawl impacting your life can be frustrating. They have been trying to shutdown Capitol Raceway (Crofton) for years, and it was built in 1963 in "the boonies." Fred55

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fred55 said:

Agreed, however, with urban sprawl at what point does simply the sound of firearms become an issue. Living in a rural area for decades and sudden sprawl impacting your life can be frustrating. They have been trying to shutdown Capitol Raceway (Crofton) for years, and it was built in 1963 in "the boonies." Fred55

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It turns out someone was target shooting in Loudoun on May 5 and some bullets hit three houses. Nobody was hurt, thankfully.

Here's the rub: apparently the Loudoun County Sheriffs Department knows who was doing the shooting, but is not going to prosecute them!

That is not good. Failure to enforce laws means that MORE laws and restrictions will be placed on everyone to "fix" the problem, when simply enforcing current law would also fix the problem without further infringements on everyone else.

The person shooting supposedly has a berm, but obviously missed hitting it several times. That is unacceptable.

Several state laws were clearly violated, including reckless endangerment. Why are these laws not being enforced by the Sheriffs Department?

Predictably, the County is now looking at further restrictions on shooting. :-(

The article, below, claims that a machine gun was being used. That is possible and could explain missing the berm if the person shooting was not trained in managing the recoil of a fully-automatic gun (you need to lean firmly forward into the gun and be prepared to release the trigger if the muzzle starts to climb). Of course, the press has a bad record on identifying firearms, so who knows?

The County is going to ask some firearms experts (we don't know who at this time) to give input on how the County's ordinances can be revised.

The usual suspects, anti-rights Democrat lawmakers, are calling for changes to the ordinances:

"Sens. Jennifer Wexton (D-33) and Barbara Favola (D-31) and Dels. Jennifer Boysko, John Bell (D- 87), Karrie Delaney (D-67), Wendy Gooditis (D-10), Kathleen Murphy (D- 34) and David Reid (D-32) sent a letter to the board calling for emergency action to restrict the discharge of firearms in developed areas."

If you live in Loudoun County, I suggest you contact your supervisor and urge them to simply have the laws enforced, as opposed to further restricting the rights of gun owners.

VCDL will continue to monitor the situation. If anyone hears of further movement on this issue, let me know about it.

Thanks to member Jeff Browning for the link:

https://www.loudountimes.com/news/l...cle_b8d3fba4-68f3-11e8-835c-3319634ad2c7.html

or

https://tinyurl.com/yaeevk7j

Loudoun supervisors to discuss gun laws following incident in Aldie | News Crystal Owens, Special to the Times-Mirror

Loudoun supervisors have asked county staff for a briefing at their June 21 business meeting on the county’s gun regulations after three homes were damaged in the Willowsford community by stray bullets last month.

The May 5 incident near Aldie damaged homes in the area of Indigo Run Lane, Virginia Gold Lane and Foxtail Fields Drive.

An investigation by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office determined the rounds came from weapons – one a machine gun – being fired into a berm by individuals on seven acres of private property on Lenah Road. The sheriff’s office and the Loudoun County commonwealth’s attorney’s office declined to press charges against the property owner because local and state laws allow for the discharge of firearms in that area.

The incident some residents – now some state legislators – to question whether it’s time to revise Loudoun’s gun laws as urban sprawl continues closer to the county’s Transition Policy Area. The area – nearly 23,000 acres – stretches from south of Leesburg to the Prince William County border. Lawmakers established the area as a way to prevent high-density development from encroaching on the county’s rural landscape.

However, the area has seen tremendous growth in the last decade, with some parts near Willowsford named the fastest-growing in the county.

“Given the recent incident in which numerous bullet rounds impacted multiple homes within feet of residents and children without a single criminal charge being filed by the commonwealth attorney’s office, I feel it’s prudent to carefully review the ordinance with the assistance of firearms professionals for targeted updates that acknowledge recent growth while ensuring the safe and continued discharge of firearms throughout our rural areas,” Supervisor Tony Buffington (R-Blue Ridge) said in an email to the Times-Mirror.

Buffington said at a May 17 meeting that two of the three homes hit by bullets had residents that were within 10 feet from where the rounds struck.

“In my opinion, you’re responsible whether you violated our ordinance for every round that comes out of the gun that you pulled the trigger on,” he said at the meeting.

The incident has residents living in the area concerned for their safety, according to Supervisor Matthew Letourneau (R-Dulles). The northern portion of the Willowsford community is in the supervisor’s district, which only five years ago still had gravel roads and some working farms.

Letourneau questioned law enforcement’s decision to not pursue charges against the homeowner who participated in shooting the weapons.

“… That has now put us in a position and our residents in the position of saying, ‘Well, wait a minute. If this could happen again and there’s no consequences whatsoever for it, then what do we do?’ And right now, we don’t have an answer. So, this something that we should talk about and we should talk about it in a public way …,” he said at a May 17 business meeting.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.

Loudoun County Chairwoman Phyllis Randall (D-At Large) asked staff at that same business meeting to come back with a report on the current ordinance, how the law was developed and amended and maps showing the boundaries of regulated areas.

Lawmakers revised the ordinance in 2013, which allows for shooting in the more rural, western portion of the county. There are some restrictions, such as no shooting within 50 yards of a highway or 100 yards of a park, school or occupied building.

“Obviously, the incident in Willowsford has brought this to our attention,” Randall said. “And, obviously I think there’s some questions that need to be answered about the incident in Willowsford. But what it did is brought this to my attention. So, I don’t want to just focus on the incident in Willowsford.”

Randall said she would like to bring in firearm experts to educate the board on the best way to move forward in possibly revising the ordinance.

“It is OK for us to stop. Everyone take a big deep breath. Let’s not overreact and take a look at the ordinance,” she added.

Less than a week after homes in the Willowsford community were hit by bullets, several Democratic state lawmakers urged county supervisors to broaden firearm restrictions in the county.

Sens. Jennifer Wexton (D-33) and Barbara Favola (D-31) and Dels. Jennifer Boysko, John Bell (D- 87), Karrie Delaney (D-67), Wendy Gooditis (D-10), Kathleen Murphy (D- 34) and David Reid (D-32) sent a letter to the board calling for emergency action to restrict the discharge of firearms in developed areas.

“While the Virginia code addresses the use of firearms and destruction of property, state code provisions are primarily designed to remedy injuries or damages after they have already occurred,” the letter states. “It is our opinion that the local zoning code better provides a mechanism to proactively reduce the likelihood of injuries or damages from stray gunfire occurring in the first place.”


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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 Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]
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Less than a week after homes in the Willowsford community were hit by bullets, several Democratic state lawmakers urged county supervisors to broaden firearm restrictions in the county.

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fred55 said:

Agreed, however, with urban sprawl at what point does simply the sound of firearms become an issue. Living in a rural area for decades and sudden sprawl impacting your life can be frustrating. They have been trying to shutdown Capitol Raceway (Crofton) for years, and it was built in 1963 in "the boonies." Fred55

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2. Contact information for the Loudoun board of Supervisors, *UPDATE*
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Tonight I spoke with Loudoun County Sheriff, Mike Chapman. The problem is that there is no way to know for sure who fired the bullets that hit three houses. The Commonwealth Attorney's Office did not feel there was enough concrete information to charge anyone. The location where the Sheriff *believes* the bullets were fired has now been sold and the suspected range will no longer be used, so the problem may well have solved itself.

That said, the Board of Supervisors is still going to discuss the situation on June 21 to see if any changes to ordinances might be justified.


ACTION ITEM

If you live in Loudoun County, I suggest you attend the Board of Supervisors (BoS) meeting on Thursday, June 21, at 5 pm to hear the discussion on this issue. If you have a chance to speak, you should urge the BoS to avoid making any changes to county code based on this incident. If changes must be made, then they should be kept to an absolute minimum so as not to encroach on law-abiding citizens who are safely and lawfully shooting on their own land.

NOTE: Nothing will be changed at this meeting. If the BoS decides to make changes, they will have to give public notice for a future meeting and we will have time to respond in that situation.

The meeting location is:

Government Center
Board Room
1 Harrison St., SE
Leesburg, VA 20175


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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 Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

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JohnnyE said:

The idiots firing those guns in Aldie deserve our wrath. You must GUARANTEE that your bullets will not leave your property, especially when homes and people potentially within the impact zone.

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davsco said:

yep, democrats using this as an excuse to tighten gun and shooting restrictions. the idiots who apparently let rounds escape their property certainly are civilly liable for any damages (or injury or death) that their negligence causes. and that should be enough. responsible and law-abiding homeowners should be able to recreate on their property as they see fit. and if they become irresponsible, they should pay the price.

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