VA-ALERT: 3 more pro-gun bills filed!

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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings.html
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. Three more pro-gun bills
2. The REAL agenda for Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns

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1. Three more pro-gun bills
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Three more pre-filed pro-gun bills were introduced today.

VCDL STRONGLY supports the following bills:

HB 69, Delegate Carrico (R - Galax), "Virginia Firearms Freedom Act"
bill put in for the Virginia Campaign for Liberty (Tea Party group)
declares that the Federal Government has no jurisdiction over firearms
that are made in Virginia and sold in Virginia. The Federal
Government has been overstepping its Constitutional powers for years
and this will help put an end to some of those encroachments.

HB 72, Delegate Carrico (R - Galax), reduces the penalty for a firearm
carried on K-12 property from a class 6 felony to a class 1
misdemeanor UNLESS the gun is intended to be used, or is used in a
crime, in which case the penalty is still a class 6 felony. If the
gun is unlawfully possessed and is discharged on K-12 property, there
is a mandatory five-year prison term. This protects someone who means
no harm, but has inadvertently carried a gun onto school property from
having their life destroyed by a felony conviction. This bill was put
in for VCDL.

HB 79, Delegate Lee Ware (R - Powhatan/Chesterfield), closes the
"Chatham Star Tribune" loophole by preventing Circuit Court Clerks
from releasing CHP applicant information to anyone except police in
the line of duty. The Chatham Star Tribune continues to print
information on concealed handgun permit holders and this will bring an
end to such abuse. This bill was put in for VCDL.

This is just an FYI at this point, as the session won't be starting
until January 13th.

More gun bills will be introduced in the coming days and weeks and I
will keep you posted.


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2. The REAL agenda for Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG)
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The Snowflakes In Hell blog site has gotten a copy of MAIG's secret
agenda that Bloomberg was trying to keep out of public view. You can
download the actual document from the site, as well as read a summary.

No surprises here. It is just what VCDL has been warning about - it
has everything from new gun bans to another massive layer of laws and
bureaucracies to make it harder and harder to buy a gun. Most of it
is to be done without involving Congress by using the administrative
and regulatory powers of the BATFE.

Thanks to William Tansill for the link:

http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2009/12/28/bloombergs-blueprint/

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I'm very happy about HB 79. Let's hope Edd Houck and the Senate don't kill it again this year. They played the "close one of two doors, so the submarine still sinks" game last year.

TFred

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HB 72, Delegate Carrico (R - Galax), reduces the penalty for a firearm carried on K-12 property from a class 6 felony to a class 1 misdemeanor UNLESS the gun is intended to be used, or is used in a crime, in which case the penalty is still a class 6 felony. If the gun is unlawfully possessed and is discharged on K-12 property, there is a mandatory five-year prison term. This protects someone who meansno harm, but has inadvertently carried a gun onto school property from having their life destroyed by a felony conviction. This bill was put in for VCDL.


This bill is great news. GFZ scare the @#$% out of me so I am wondering how this legislation would override the federal GFZ or not.

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Where is the restaurant bill? This makes six bills I have seen, I would have figured the restaurant bill would be front and center.

I want the parking lot bill!!!

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Here's an article published today on the Chatham Tribune web site, one of the recurring offenders who publishes the personal information of CHP applicants.

I left a comment, but they are moderated, so it may take a while to show up, if at all.

TFred

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2010/01/15/chatham/news/news40.txt

Concealed guns: right to privacy vs. right to know
By Shadae Lee/Capital News Service

RICHMOND - A bill to block public access to concealed handgun records and applications has triggered a clash between the right to privacy and the right to know.

Delegate R. Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, is sponsoring House Bill 79. It "prohibits a clerk of court from providing public access to concealed handgun permit applications and information regarding identifiable permittees without the written consent of the applicant or permittee."

Under the legislation, "the applications and information would be available to law-enforcement agencies, and the clerk of court would be authorized to release aggregate information that does not identify individual applicants or permittees."

The proposal by Ware, who represents Powhatan County and part of Chesterfield County, follows years of discussion over how public concealed weapons permits should be.

In 2007, The Roanoke Times posted on its Web site a searchable database containing the names and addresses of more than 135,000 Virginians licensed to carry concealed weapons.

The database accompanied a column about Sunshine Week, a national initiative to promote open government.

After hundreds of readers complained, The Roanoke Times apologized and removed the database.

State officials then announced that they would no longer make available a database of concealed weapons permits. Individual records still are open for inspection, but only at the courthouse in the locality that issued the permit.

Some of the people on the list published by the Roanoke newspaper were members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group.

Philip Van Cleave, the league's president, said his group supports Ware's bill.

"The release of the names caused people to move and lives to be put in jeopardy," Cleave said. "There was no need for names to be released."

People often get concealed weapons permits if they feel they are in danger - a woman being stalked, for example, or a business owner who makes after-hours bank deposits. Moreover, permit holders say they fear criminals will target them - breaking into their homes or vehicles - to try to steal their weapons.

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government and the Virginia Press Association oppose Ware's bill to keep concealed handgun records completely secret from the public. Open-records advocates say there are good reasons for keeping the concealed weapons permits public: This helps ensure that dangerous people aren't getting such permits.

Ginger Stanley, executive director of the press association, said she supports the compromise that was reached two years ago to keep concealed weapons permits open but not as an electronic data base.

Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition of Open Government, said it's important for the public to be able to confirm if certain individuals have a concealed handgun permit.

"As long as permits for concealed weapons are required in Virginia, there should be some level of public access to them," she said.

Ware's bill has been referred to the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety.

Last year, the Tennessee Legislature almost passed a law similar to Ware's proposal, according to Frank Gibson of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.

That came after a Tennessee newspaper published a database of Tennessee's concealed weapons permits holders.

Gibson said he believes such records should stay open.

"The state [Tennessee] had given permits to convicted felons and had failed to revoke permits following felony and domestic violence," Gibson said. "The only way for the public and press to know whether the government is issuing permits to people who shouldn't have them is for the information to remain open."

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TFred wrote:

Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition of Open Government, said it's important for the public to be able to confirm if certain individuals have a concealed handgun permit.

Click to expand...

Like abusive ex-boyfriends and husbandswho want to find out where their spouses who put them in jail now live after they get out.

Click to expand...

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I spoke personally to Tom Gear (R) today at lobby day. He assured me he supported the bill to close court CCW data to individuals.

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DonTreadOnMe wrote:

Where is the restaurant bill? This makes six bills I have seen, I would have figured the restaurant bill would be front and center.

I want the parking lot bill!!!

Click to expand...

This is what I wanted to know too. I hope they can get this bill passed this time and hopefully it wont get vetoed again.

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hometheaterman wrote:

DonTreadOnMe wrote:

Where is the restaurant bill? This makes six bills I have seen, I would have figured the restaurant bill would be front and center.

I want the parking lot bill!!!

Click to expand...

This is what I wanted to know too. I hope they can get this bill passed this time and hopefully it wont get vetoed again.

Click to expand...

Pay attention:
http://leg1.state.va.us/101/lis.htm

There are THREE BILLS with some version of restaurant carry.
The parking lot bill is in there too.
I'd post them but it is healthy to go through it yourself!

and sign up for VCDL Alerts.
www.vcdl.org

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I just noticed that Delegate Cole has signed on as a co-Patron for HB 79.

TFred

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45acpForMe wrote:

GFZ scare the @#$% out of me so I am wondering how this legislation would override the federal GFZ or not.

Click to expand...

Now, I am not a lawyer, but I don't think the Federal GFSZ law will hold up in court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Lopez

When the first iteration was overturned by the courts, it wasn't because "it might apply to guns not involved in interstate commerce, which is beyond our jurisdiction".

If you read the decision, the court seems to assume that any guns in question have been involved in interstate commerce, and the problem is that the offense itself (being armed in a GFSZ) is a criminal matter unrelated to interstate commerce.

Re-passing the law with all kinds of "the gun was involved in interstate commerce" language added didn't actually address the issue the court had with it, because whether or not the gun was involved in interstate commerce was not believed by the court to be relevant in the first place.

My guess is someone felt they needed it put it back the books for political reasons and for the use as a form of "sentence enhancement". What the added language does do is make it seem to be in compliance with the ruling, so that it could be passed at all, and have weight until it is challenged. But if it were ever used as a charge alone, and challenged, my guess is that it wouldn't stand up to scrutiny.

Now, of course, all this is highly questionable, because the decision, in the first place, was quite out of line with basically the complete entirely of all other SCOTUS precedent, without exception evincing the statist belief that anything and everything is involved in interstate commerce, so long as it provides the Federal government with power that it may assume with political expediency (compare marijuana to guns in this regard).

See Gonzales v Raich.

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marshaul wrote:

45acpForMe wrote:

GFZ scare the @#$% out of me so I am wondering how this legislation would override the federal GFZ or not.

Click to expand...

Now, I am not a lawyer, but I don't think the Federal GFSZ law will hold up in court.

Click to expand...

What you have described is "legislation by intimidation". Everyone "knows" the GFSZ law won't hold up, but until they hit somebody over the head with it, and the club bounces off, nobody knows that for sure, and until then, it's a mighty big club they have poised ready to swing, which intimidates millions of law-abiding gun owners into walking on eggshells anywhere near a school.

The feds aren't stupid, they have the best of both worlds right now, it would take someone in charge who understands how much this law stinks, and who wants to have it invalidated before anyone will try to use it. How likely is that to happen?

TFred

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Just goes to show how far we are from a representative government.

The freakin' SCOTUS is more responsive to popular will than is the legislature. :uhoh:

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So when do these bills get voted on?

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http://legis.virginia.gov/1_cit_guide/sessions.html

Depending on the number of bills they could go to March 12. If there are extenuating circumstances they can go through April.

Voting takes place throughout. It is when they go to McDonnell that it's of true importance.

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Yeah, there is a whole long process. Remember Schoolhouse Rock - I'm Just a Bill? Similar process.

Just for kicks, take a look at last year's SB1105, the restaurant smoking ban. If you bring up that page and scroll down, you can see all the steps it went through before being signed into law. Each bill has its own path, depending on committees, etc, but you get the idea.

TFred