Survey on Self-Defense Legislation for 2012 Virgina General Assembly

Survey on Self-Defense Legislation for 2012 Virgina General Assembly

I've put together a survey on possible bills for the 2012 General Assembly session on self defense.

It's a "ranking" survey, which will capture a much deeper snapshot of what is wanted than a simple "pick your one favorite" format.

Seems fairly easy to use, click the link, drag each of the ideas over to the right side of the page, ranking them in the order you prefer.

Once you're done, you must click the "Submit Answers" button at the bottom of the page.

I'm posting this simultaneously on OCDO (Virginia), VaGunTrader and VaGunForum. Feel free to spread the link to the survey to any venues (e-mail, forums, websites, legislators) where you genuinely believe it will be welcome. Obviously we don't want to SPAM.

The results link is displayed after you complete the survey.

TFred

Link text:

http://kwiksurveys.com?u=Virginia2012

Will be very interested in the results of this. Particularly if you get enough volume to be representative of how people feel.

nova said:

I didn't see constitutional carry on the list. I'd rather see that instead of the idea of a lifetiime CHP or CWP.

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100% agree.

I'll have to do it later TFred. I can't drag a field on this IPad without moving the whole screen.:uhoh:

peter nap said:

I'll have to do it later TFred. I can't drag a field on this IPad without moving the whole screen.:uhoh:

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No problem, I don't have any set date to "finish" it. Hope to leave it up for at least a few weeks.

TFred

wylde007 said:

100% agree.

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I think the idea is legislation that has a realistic chance of passing this year Wylde.

Time to prefile bills is running out.

peter nap said:

Time to prefile bills is running out.

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I forgot about that early deadline for pre-filing... yes... we need to get this survey spread around a bit more!

Twitter'ers?

TFred

Wouldn't state agency preemption eliminate hunting conflicts with defensive carry anyway?

Roscoe

18.2-308 seems to negate any other hunting v self defense regs, as long as you have a CHP. I could see changing it to remove the CHP requirement, and add something regarding actual use of the firearm being a violation versus just being in possession.

6. Any person actually engaged in lawful hunting, as authorized by the Board of Game and Inland Fisheries, under inclement weather conditions necessitating temporary protection of his firearm from those conditions, provided that possession of a handgun while engaged in lawful hunting shall not be construed as hunting with a handgun if the person hunting is carrying a valid concealed handgun permit;

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The problem with that law being open carriers (such as those who supposedly populate this site) are left flapping in the breeze.

roscoe13 said:

Wouldn't state agency preemption eliminate hunting conflicts with defensive carry anyway?

Roscoe

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No, because the target regulations this year should be having a loaded shotgun/rifle in your vehicle. The Statute allows municipalities like Richmond, to use the hunting regulations to supersede preemption.

Having a loaded long gun in your vehicle in the city of Richmond has nothing to do with hunting, it's self defense, however they are allowed to prevent it under the guise of preventing road hunting.

Thanks for the survey TFred! I'll be sure to pass it around to some other gun toters I know.

Here’s mine, I only bothered with 10 of them. Addressing the first ones should take care of some of the issues that I listed later.
1. “Preempt” ALL of state government like 15.2-915.
2. Add civil liability for GFZ property owners.
3. Churches – repeal state imposed restriction.
4. Remove hunting conflicts with self-defense carry.
5. Penalize all violations of 15.2-915.
6. Remove restrictions on barrel threads and mag capacity.
7. Repeal One-Gun-Per-Month.
8. Parking Lot Law
9. Privatize CHP info.
10. Emergency shelters must allow handgun carry.

Done!

Done. Thanks TFred.

done. thx!

Finished!

nova said:

I didn't see constitutional carry on the list. I'd rather see that instead of the idea of a lifetiime CHP or CWP.

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I agree.

Just in case ConCarry fails, how about a little surgery on 18.2-308 and carve out the section that allows Sheriffs and Chiefs to block CHPs even though the citizen has passed every other check "because the applicant may use the firearm dangerously." This little item keeps VA from having reciprocity with a few states, as well as keeps VA from truly being "shall issue" as it retains the flavor of the bad old days when the Sheriffs and Chiefs had discretion.

Early results

Here is a snapshot of the survey results so far. Much explanation below.





Even after only 3 days of data collection and 75 responses, I am very pleased with the results of this survey. Not even particularly because of how the votes have come in, but by the breadth of information one can learn from doing a little bit of studying on the overall picture.

As I stated in the introduction, the big deal with this survey is that it asks you to "rank" your preferences, which allows for a much deeper picture than a simple "pick your one favorite from a list." One analogy that I can think of to illustrate this is the NASCAR points race. (Although I'm not really particularly a NASCAR fan, I know a tiny bit about how the points race works.) If a different driver won every race, and that was the only result that "counted", you'd have a really big tie. But since you get points for every position you finish, you get a cumulative score over the season. If one driver came in 2nd or 3rd EVERY race, and never won, he would probably win the points race by a long shot.

Same deal here, only with bills. Some of the easy pickings we can deduce so far is this:

1. Castle Doctrine is very important to people. As often noted (even on a current thread) Virginia does already have a very good case history for castle doctrine protection. I take these results to mean that either people still don't understand that, or perhaps they really feel better about being able to read it in the Code of Virginia for themselves. Note: The second place bill actually got one more First place vote, but the overall concern represented by the lower position votes pushed this bill to the top.

2. Preemption (15.2-915) is big. Coming in 2nd and 5th were the two bills adding preemption to ALL state government and adding penalties for localities that violate it.

Filling out the top 5 were the Parking Lot Bill and Privatizing CHP information, no coincidence that all these top-5 issues get a lot of discussion on OCDO.

Surprisingly low (to me at least), the idea to eliminate the VSP background check and use the Feds check instead came in next to last. I guess this means that the VSP program is not perceived to be very much of a problem.

Also of interest is the next to last column, Total Votes, which at the lower end reveals what issues are simply not cared about by many people. The highest there was for the Castle Doctrine: 68 out of the 75 respondents included Castle Doctrine somewhere in their list of important bills. Compare to only 47 out of the 75 voting for the Subdivision bill as any concern at all.

For those interested, a little bit about how these final scores and rankings were calculated. Each "vote" was assigned a weighted value, the inverse of the ranked position. Each #1 vote counted 18 points, #2 was 17 points, all the way down to the last vote, #18, which received 1 point. Add them all up, then divide that by the highest possible value (If that bill had received #1 votes from ALL the responses), and you get a percentage. The higher the percentage, the closer you are to EVERYONE voting that bill as their #1 issue.

To sum it up... If you participated, THANK YOU! I think these are very interesting results, and I plan to leave the survey up for some time yet. I think if we can get a bigger sample, those in positions to lobby will have a very useful bit of information at their disposal.

As before, please feel free to spread the link around to any outlets that will find it of interest.

http://kwiksurveys.com?u=Virginia2012

TFred

Full state preemption including agencies et al is right in there saying, "Me, me, me pass me."

Castle Doctrine was a low priority for myself in that case law already has given us that. Passage of such is more in the line of a clean-up step, but could further cause problems if the wording is not spot on.

The background check problem with VSP is huge and is effecting sales. It is the tip of the iceberg in providing a stumbling block to purchasers. It is about control, not about efficiency.

IMHO - all of the gun bills and existing statutes need teeth/penalties for willful violation; otherwise enforcement is much more difficult and compliance is sometimes less than intentional.

School Building Issue

One item I thought about is the school building for non-educational uses. Ie BOS meetings, Voteing, etc.. I would love to see the school issue go away completely, but in the mean time at least for non-educational uses.