VA House Passes Odious New AWB

[Occam]

If this just-passed-the-House-of-delegates bill makes it into law, people living in or visiting Virginia will not be allowed to purchase or possess an "assault weapon" (typical Evil Features language) made after July 1, and mag capacity will drop to 10. Will make those big gun shows in Chantilly a rather different experience, that's for sure.

Why? Because the majority of conservatives in the state COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO VOTE in the last election, and this bill went through on a party line vote where the Democrats have a two-seat majority in the state.

Va. House passes ban on new assault weapons - WTOP News

In an attempt to curb gun violence, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a new bill that would ban assault rifles.

wtop.com

 

[adit]

It will get vetoed.

 

[Occam]

It will get vetoed.

They won't stop, and NoVa's demographic/political control over the lethargic, non-voting rest of the state will increase until veto-proof is achieved.

 

[welder516]

No state and none of the progressives will stop, it is in their DNA to keep pushing and pushing. If they get every third bill passed they are still ahead.
Even when they lose they test the law/system and rethink or rephrase the next attack. Seems like a futile exercise at times.

 

[AssMan]

Youngkin will veto, but the writing is on the wall; Abagail Spanberger will be our next governor, and then they'll have complete control.

 

[Occam]

Youngkin will veto, but the writing is on the wall; Abagail Spanberger will be our next governor, and then they'll have complete control.

Yup. All because county after rural Virginia county full of conservative people would rather do anything but vote. It’s suicidal.

 

[davsco]

Youngkin will veto, but the writing is on the wall; Abagail Spanberger will be our next governor, and then they'll have complete control.

Yep the political trajectory is definitely wrong direction.

 

[Growler215]

Could this be a tactical mistake on the part of the Dems?

They pass gun control bills that they know won't become law because of a Governor veto, BUT people see the kind of stuff they're willing to do and vote against them next time.

Maybe that's why they're doing it this year instead of next year when they have to run for office?

 

[Vic]

I really wish gun people would register and vote.

 

[BurkeM]

Join VCDL, AND DONATE.

 

[Occam]

Join VCDL, AND DONATE.

That helps. But getting more than a small portion of gun owners out to actually vote would completely change the political landscape in Virginia. The lefties love how lazy conservatives are.

 

[MattFinals718]

Youngkin will veto, but the writing is on the wall; Abagail Spanberger will be our next governor, and then they'll have complete control.

That helps. But getting more than a small portion of gun owners out to actually vote would completely change the political landscape in Virginia. The lefties love how lazy conservatives are.

I feel like y'all are not giving Virginians enough credit. We (and I include myself, as a VA expat) already went through this same charade four years ago (late-2019/early-2020), when Governor Blackface wanted to pass an AWB, and actually had sufficient legislative control to do so. VCDL and a number of other local pro-2A orgs organized massive protests in Richmond and elsewhere, and as a result, the AWB never passed.

I'm sure that I'm going to be accused of being too optimistic, but I don't see VA passing a state AWB any time soon. At the very least, I don't see how anyone can say that VA gun owners are "lazy." We have shown that we will fight any such law, and even if Spanberger acts more like a mini-tyrant than a governor (much like Grisham in NM now), VA punishes its legislators who pass extreme gun control laws a lot more than MD does.

Side note: I find it amusing (as with the bill that was proposed four years ago) that VA's AWB would be even more restrictive than MD's - its features test is basically the same as what existed in the 1994 Federal AWB. The bummer for us is that we would no longer be able to buy mags with capacities exceeding 10 rounds in VA.

 

[Occam]

I feel like y'all are not giving Virginians enough credit. We (and I include myself, as a VA expat) already went through this same charade four years ago (late-2019/early-2020), when Governor Blackface wanted to pass an AWB, and actually had sufficient legislative control to do so. VCDL and a number of other local pro-2A orgs organized massive protests in Richmond and elsewhere, and as a result, the AWB never passed.

I'm sure that I'm going to be accused of being too optimistic, but I don't see VA passing a state AWB any time soon. At the very least, I don't see how anyone can say that VA gun owners are "lazy." We have shown that we will fight any such law, and even if Spanberger acts more like a mini-tyrant than a governor (much like Grisham in NM now), VA punishes its legislators who pass extreme gun control laws a lot more than MD does.

Lazy, as in, well less than half of the demographically conservative voters in Virginia bothered to vote last time. And the house went to the Dems by a couple of seats. There is no way to characterize that except as lazily disinterested in who controls the state legislature. The GOP in Virginia would run the executive AND the legislature if gun owners (read: more conservative residents) bothered to vote. By large margins, they don't even show up.

That's not a comment on how hard the VCDL and other organizations work, it's a comment on how hard to you have to work when it shouldn't even be an issue in the first place.

 

[MattFinals718]

Lazy, as in, well less than half of the demographically conservative voters in Virginia bothered to vote last time. And the house went to the Dems by a couple of seats. There is no way to characterize that except as lazily disinterested in who controls the state legislature. The GOP in Virginia would run the executive AND the legislature if gun owners (read: more conservative residents) bothered to vote. By large margins, they don't even show up.

That's not a comment on how hard the VCDL and other organizations work, it's a comment on how hard to you have to work when it shouldn't even be an issue in the first place.

Yes, but VA gun owners have shown that they're anything but lazily disinterested. Do you really think that if an AWB were proposed under a possible future Spanberger governorship, the results would be different than 2020? Your post called out VA gun owners specifically for laziness, vs. the overall conservative-leaning electorate.

 

[Occam]

Yes, but VA gun owners have shown that they're anything but lazily disinterested. Do you really think that if an AWB were proposed under a possible future Spanberger governorship, the results would be different than 2020? Your post called out VA gun owners specifically for laziness, vs. the overall conservative-leaning electorate.

I guarantee you that only a very small percentage of Virginia gun owners voted recently, or will vote. The hard working 2A activists in Virginia are carrying the burden of the electorate not bothering to vote. All of that energy and money having to be spent to clean up after a lefty legislature that wouldn't even be able to stir that pot if the rural counties and the gun owners that live there voted. If even HALF of them voted.

 

[AssMan]

So, two things...the prior bill was stopped by 2 Democratic senators, but one of those holdouts is now a sponsor of this bill. The other issue is a simple math problem. Even if conservative voters outperform Democratic voters at the "poles," we lose.

I personally won't comply with any of it, and given Bruen, there is likely to be an immediate injunction, but we're kidding ourselves if we think we can just vote harder to make it all go away.

 

[Occam]

I personally won't comply with any of it, and given Bruen, there is likely to be an immediate injunction, but we're kidding ourselves if we think we can just vote harder to make it all go away.

Voting harder (as in, getting even half of Virginia conservatives to vote at all) would strip the Dems of their legislative power. They have that power because the beltway-zone D voters DID "vote harder."

 

[AssMan]

Voting harder (as in, getting even half of Virginia conservatives to vote at all) would strip the Dems of their legislative power. They have that power because the beltway-zone D voters DID "vote harder."

I'd like to see the numbers. I don't believe this is true or even knowable. Voters don't have party affiliations in VA, so how can you be so sure that 50% conservative turnout gets us a W?

I will say that the GOP ground game in VA is absolutely pathetic. Many races are uncontested. Like the RNC leadership, the VA GOP leadership needs to go.

 

[Combloc]

I personally won't comply with any of it, and given Bruen, there is likely to be an immediate injunction, but we're kidding ourselves if we think we can just vote harder to make it all go away.

You are a Patriot sir. Stay the course.

 

[Occam]

I'd like to see the numbers. I don't believe this is true or even knowable. Voters don't have party affiliations in VA, so how can you be so sure that 50% conservative turnout gets us a W?

Because the house is just a couple of seats in the D camp, and best reporting from the last election shows at best 25% of registered rural Republicans voting. That doesn't even take into account those who haven't bothered to register to vote at all.

In the 2022 election, less than half of Virginia's registered voters voted (3,021,956 out of 6,132,331 registered). The counties with the highest percentage turning out were Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon, etc. The huge swath of more rural counties were under 25% turnout. The math is not complicated. In some recent elections, you had Virginia districts in solidly red areas where a Democrat won the seat with only a small number of votes because they ran UNOPPOSED, with no Republican opponent at all. That they have the House by a couple of seats is 100% on complacent Republicans uninterested in voting.