PART ONE IN A CONTINUING SERIES ON THE IMPACT OF GUNS
Rhetorical bullets are already flying as politicians prepare for what is starting to look like the greatest gun law fight in a generation when state legislators return to Richmond this month.
Aided by campaign donations from gun-control advocacy groups and increasing public support for related policy changes, Democrats gained enough seats in the state Senate and House of Delegates on Nov. 5 to take control of both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time in more than two decades.
The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates responded to the recently transformed political landscape by warning that guns may be confiscated and lobbying for people in localities across Virginia to declare themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”
Gov. Ralph Northam talks to supporters on July 9, after Republicans halted a special session to address gun violence. (Photo courtesy Jack Mayer, Office of the Governor of Virginia)
Even before the blue and white balloons popped and the confetti could be swept up on Election Night, Gov. Ralph S. Northam, an Army veteran and pediatric neurologist, released a statement saying the results indicated that Virginia voters “want us to finally pass common-sense gun safety legislation, so no one has to fear being hurt or killed while at school, at work, or at their place of worship.”
“[America] is not in a gun violence crisis.” —Amy E. Swearer, The Heritage Foundation
During a Cabinet meeting the next day, the Democratic governor announced plans to pursue gun-control measures that never would have made it through a Republican-controlled House and Senate. Among those are background checks on all firearm sales; banning assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, bump stocks and silencers; reinstating Virginia’s one-gun-a-month law; and a “red flag” law that would allow law enforcement officers and courts to temporarily remove a gun from the possession of someone they have determined to be a risk to themselves or others.
Del. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah County) who will serve as House minority leader during the next General Assembly session, reacted to the election results by releasing a statement that blamed “liberal judicial gerrymandering and millions of dollars in outside spending from Democrat billionaires and special interests.” Gilbert promised to fight what he called the opposing party’s “extreme agenda,” but added, “with unchecked control of both Houses and a governor still desperately seeking rehabilitation, we will have our work cut out for us.”
Opposing Interests
In a state where the NRA has long held sway, and gun rights are considered as American as the Fourth of July and apple pie, the possibility of such change frightens some as much as it comes as a relief to others.
Kristin DuMont and Courtney Champion are relieved. Both have young children and are members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America in the Richmond area. They stress that their group is nonpartisan and that some of the organization’s members own guns and are Republicans.
“We are singularly dedicated to gun safety, to finding common sense solutions and to electing officials who will help bring about changes that will help keep our neighborhoods and families safe,” says DuMont, who lives on Richmond’s North Side. Champion, a Henrico County resident, says that people voted with their hearts and heads, adding, “We just can’t keep living with fear anytime we hear loud popping noises or worry ourselves sick that we are not safe in our churches, schools, movie theaters or streets.”
Kristin DuMont (left) and Courtney Champion of Moms Demand Action say they are dedicated to working for gun safety. (Photo by Ash Daniel)
They are not alone. A Washington Post-Schar School poll released in October found that gun policy was at the top of Virginia voters’ list of concerns, with 75% of respondents calling the issue “very important.” The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, co-founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who joined the field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Nov. 24), poured more than $1.5 million into the Virginia elections in 2019, far outspending the NRA’s $350,269, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
Among the top recipients from Everytown for Gun Safety were Democratic candidates Missy Cotter Smasal of Virginia Beach, Sheila Bynum-Coleman of Chesterfield County, Debra Rodman of Henrico County and Ghazala Hashmi of Chesterfield — each of whom received more than $100,000; of those, only Hashmi won her election. Republican Gilbert’s Majority Leader PAC received the NRA’s largest donation, $226,500.
In Virginia, gun-control efforts mobilized in the wake of the mass shooting that killed 12 people at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center on May 31, 2019 — less than a week after the shooting death of 9-year-old Markiya Simone Dickson on Memorial Day weekend in a South Richmond park. Mass shootings such as the Feb. 14, 2018, killing of 17 people at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and elsewhere galvanized gun-control proponents nationwide, with young activists leading the charge.
In response to the Virginia shootings, Northam called a special General Assembly session on July 9 that ended after 90 minutes, when the GOP-controlled legislature voted to adjourn until Nov. 18. In a news conference immediately after the adjournment, Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox dismissed Northam’s effort as “an election-year stunt” and proposed a return to stiff mandatory minimums.
Democrats say the measures backed by Northam are “common sense” gun legislation that are similar in many respects to the state’s laws concerning automobiles — devices that can be as deadly and dangerous as guns if handled improperly.
Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan, (D-Richmond), vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia and a member of the Democratic National Committee, says Democrats are determined to close the “gun-show loophole” that allows private sales at gun shows to take place without the background checks that dealers must perform.
“Now more than ever, we need safeguards, not loopholes,” she says, “and we need to increase resources for background checks to keep guns out of the hands of those who would harm the innocent and law-abiding members of our communities.”
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Stephen D. Newman (R-Bedford), the outgoing Senate president pro tempore (presiding officer in the absence of the lieutenant governor), says Republicans have some of their own “common sense” legislation. They have proposed bills that increase mandatory minimums for people who use guns in violent crimes and restrict the restoration of gun rights for convicted felons who have served their time.
Newman strikes a more conciliatory tone than his colleague, Gilbert, saying, “I hope we will find ways to work together, and that can happen if Democrats don’t try to throw red meat to their base while talking in brochure platitudes.” He adds, “As we go through this process, the key question that I hope all legislators will ask is whether what we have in place already is being enforced to the fullest extent of the law and whether what is being proposed will actually capture criminal acts.”
Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, says via text message that the Democrats have “already filed some extreme legislation that will hurt law-abiding citizens.” She took specific aim at Senate Bill 4024, introduced before the halted July session by Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), which would make it a Class 6 felony to sell or transport assault weapons.
On Nov. 18, Sen. Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), the new Senate majority leader, pre-filed a similar measure — Senate Bill 16 — that also drew fire from the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, which published a Nov. 25 article arguing that “the legislation is clearly designed to be firearms confiscation, as current owners would be forced to dispossess themselves of their property or face a felony conviction.”
Contacted by phone in early December, Ebbin said that he and Saslaw planned to withdraw the previous bills and introduce an assault weapons ban that contains an explicit grandfather clause.
“No one is coming for assault weapons that people already own,” Ebbin says. “We are about public safety, and Sen. Saslaw and I agree that our bill will forbid the future sale of these weapons, and that it is simply not practical to consider collecting anybody’s weapons.”
Chase, who recently left the Senate Republican Caucus but retains her party affiliation, says she intends to introduce legislation to ban gun-free zones, even though she knows that “nothing will pass.”
Gun rights supporters gather at the State Capitol for a rally on Dec. 9, organized by the Virginia First Foundation. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Eyes on Virginia
As the General Assembly takes up gun policy questions during this year’s session, concerned constituents and legislators alike should note that gun ownership is older than the nation and so is arguing about gun regulation.
One of the first 30 acts of the legislature, which dates its existence to the first assembly at Jamestown on July 30, 1619, was to establish the first gun control law in the New World. In 1619, the Virginia House of Burgesses made the transfer of guns to Native Americans by a colonist a crime punishable by death. Other laws across the Colonies made it a crime for colonists to sell or give firearms to “slaves, indentured servants, Catholics, vagrants and those who refused to swear a loyalty oath to the revolutionary forces,” according to Robert J. Spitzer, chairman of the political science department at the State University of New York College at Cortland. Spitzer is the author of 15 books, including five on gun control, as well as more than 600 scholarly articles.
He maintains that a historical examination of gun control law is especially relevant today, because the debate is “typically framed as a fierce, zero-sum struggle” pitting advocates of stronger gun laws against supporters of gun rights. Essentially, “the zero-sum quality of this struggle posits that a victory for one side is a loss for the other, and vice versa.”
Spitzer says he and other scholars and pundits will be watching the upcoming Virginia legislative session closely, and he hopes that the dueling parties will find common ground and work collaboratively to address issues surrounding firearms that are confronting the state and the nation.
To be sure, the world will be watching.
“America’s gun violence issues — and what this General Assembly session does —will be front-and-center,” says Robert D. “Bob” Holsworth, a political analyst and founding director of the Center for Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University. He says he believes the General Assembly session, which starts Jan. 8, will generate global coverage in light of the looming 2020 presidential election and the fact that Virginia is next door to Washington, D.C., and home to the NRA’s headquarters.
“What happened in this 2019 election in Virginia was huge. It represents a sea change in the politics of gun control [and] in Virginia politics as well — the biggest change in a generation,” Holsworth says. “It could be a colossal train wreck for both parties or the scene of some modern profiles in courage. The Democrats won because they realized that common-sense gun safety is — and was — the single most important issue for a majority of Virginians.”
“We just can’t keep living with fear anytime we hear loud popping noises.” —Courtney Champion, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Democrats and common-sense gun control won, says Richmond resident Wendy M. Martin, because of people like her friend Lori Haas, whose daughter, Emily, was injured in the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting.
“[Haas] went to the Virginia General Assembly for 12 straight years, advocating for sensible gun laws,” says Martin, a gun-control advocate. “She never gave up. She never stopped going. … She’s the poster image for ‘She persisted.’ ”
Holsworth agrees. “People like Haas and others who lost family members in the mass shootings like Virginia Beach and Virginia Tech and those who have lost loved ones in random crazy acts of gun violence gave human faces to the pain and helped make it clear they are sick of the gun violence.”
He says the Republicans basically ceded control to the Democrats because of the “high-handed” way they conducted the special session Northam convened in July. Although more than 70 bills were pre-filed for the session by both Democrats and Republicans, not one bill was considered. By the end of it, the Virginia State Crime Commission, which Republicans dominated, was tasked to hold special hearings on gun control issues and deliver recommendations to the General Assembly based on public hearings and research.
A representative of The Heritage Foundation who testified before the commission in August argued that the issues surrounding gun violence in Virginia and in America have more to do with mental health than with guns and gun owners. Amy E. Swearer, a senior legal policy analyst in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, began her testimony by stating that America “is not in a gun violence crisis.” She went on to say that “we must address the role of untreated serious mental illness in gun violence and consider carefully constructed measures that help identify and disarm dangerous individuals.”
Asked recently about Swearer’s comments, state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath County), chair of a joint subcommittee studying mental health in Virginia, countered that “people with mental illnesses are more likely to be the victims of gun violence rather than the perpetrators.” Deeds is connected to the issue of mental health through personal heartbreak — the death of his son, Gus, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, from suicide in 2013 after the young man stabbed Deeds multiple times and committed suicide by shooting himself.
Promises to Keep
Anne B. Holton, the interim George Mason University president and a former Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judge, says she hopes for cooperation among legislators when the General Assembly reconvenes. She recalls the terrible moment in 2007 when she and her husband, then-Gov. Tim Kaine, learned of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech during a trade mission to Asia. They had only been in Japan for five hours, but they immediately returned to Virginia. Thirty-three people, including the shooter, died as a result of that incident.
Holton is no stranger to comforting grieving families who have lost loved ones to gun violence. “As a former juvenile and domestic relations court judge in Richmond, I saw way too many children come before me who had way too much easy access to firearms. It pains me still to see the consequences of incarceration that far too many children end up enduring because of impulsive actions with guns that they never should have been able to lay hands on.”
Holton says she doesn’t have the answers as to what needs to be done regarding Virginia’s gun laws. “I’m relying on and trusting the folks at the General Assembly will figure this out,” she says. “One thing is absolutely clear: We must do something.”
Judging from the 13 hours of public testimony, more than 4,000 public comments and the numerous reports and PowerPoint presentations that the Virginia State Crime Commission received and researched, there are plenty of people who agree that something must be done — with plenty of ideas on how to do it — but there are also many who say that no changes are needed, and they cite a lack of empirical and conclusive information as to the most effective ways to address the issues.
On Nov. 12, the State Crime Commission, chaired by Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), released a brief report stating, “Staff determined that inconclusive evidence exists to develop recommendations.”
The report’s summary continued, “While staff researched a wide variety of policies and many other matters related to gun violence, the overall findings from the research were often insufficient, mixed, contradictory, or based on limited methodology. The absence of recommendations should not be interpreted as a finding that no changes to Virginia’s laws are necessary. Any changes to these laws are policy decisions which can only be made by the General Assembly.”
Plans to reconvene the General Assembly on Nov. 18 dissolved in the aftermath of the election, so Democrats will have the upper hand when legislators return to Richmond this month, with a 55-to-45 advantage in the House and a 21-to-19 edge in the Senate. Given those numbers, Holsworth says Virginia Democrats are in a historic position to pursue “a robust and progressive agenda,” one that could beget the “single most consequential gun safety and progressive legislation in generations.”
Meanwhile, Gilbert is quoted in a Nov. 11 report by Norfolk TV station WTKR as saying, “Republicans stand ready to propose our own ideas for reducing gun violence.”
Deeds says he hopes his colleagues on both sides of the aisle will find a way to have a “mature conversation ... and really do something substantive for the people of Virginia.”
An NRA member and a hunter since age 10, Deeds says the November election was “not about anybody collecting guns.” He adds, “The Democrats and Republicans need to have some honest discussions and find our way to some mature solutions. The people of Virginia are depending on us to show the kind of leadership that will not only address the immediate issues but serve as a model for the rest of the country. It is up to us.”
Virginia Gun Laws Timeline
1619: The Virginia General Assembly convenes on July 30 and meets for five days, enacting the first formal gun law in America, prohibiting sales to Native Americans.
1680: Virginia law restricts enslaved individuals from carrying weapons, assembling in large groups and traveling off plantations without permission.
1791: On Dec. 15, Virginia becomes the 11th state to ratify the 10 constitutional amendments forming the Bill of Rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.
1950: In the Uniform Machine Gun Law Act, the state requires all machine guns to be registered with the Department of State Police within 24 hours of purchase.
1979: Possessing a firearm in an elementary, middle or high school building with intent to use it in a threatening manner becomes a Class 6 felony.
1997: The Project Exile program is initiated in Richmond in response to gang violence, moving the prosecution of felons caught with guns and armed persons involved in violent crimes to federal court, where there is a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
2012: On Feb. 12, Gov. Bob McDonnell signs a bill repealing the “one gun a month law.” Proponents of the change said the purchase limit was no longer necessary.
Sources: “Gun Law History in the United States and Second Amendment Rights” by Robert J. Spitzer; Encyclopedia Virginia; National Archives; U.S. Department of Justice, Virginia Law Library; Virginia State Police; news reports