PART FIVE IN A CONTINUING SERIES ON THE IMPACT OF GUNS AND RELATED ISSUES
Illustration by Iain Duffus
Billed as the greatest gunfight in a generation at the Virginia General Assembly, the historic 2020 legislative session had hits and misses for both parties. And the fight isn’t over yet.
Although Democrats — with majorities in both the Senate and House of Delegates — managed to get seven of eight key gun-related bills signed into law this year, they failed to pass what Robert Holsworth, a veteran political analyst and founding director of the Center for Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University, terms the “most vital” piece of legislation: a ban on assault weapons. He notes that it wasn’t the Republicans who defeated the assault weapon ban, but “other Democrats who thought the bill, as presented, was overly broad.”
Still, Holsworth says the victories the Democrats scored are “impressive and historic,” but he predicts “there will be more fighting” in the 2021 General Assembly session.
The Democrats’ push for firearms legislation helped galvanize a nascent Second Amendment Sanctuary movement across the commonwealth, with 91 of Virginia’s 96 counties passing measures opposed to any state firearms legislation.
Virginia’s Democratic attorney general, Mark Herring, issued an advisory opinion in December that said the local pro-Second Amendment Sanctuary laws were not legally valid.
In January, more than 22,000 people, many openly carrying weapons, converged on Capitol Square in Richmond. Despite fears that the gathering could become a repeat of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, the event was nonviolent. Phillip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), who helped organize the January rally, says he was pleased the participants “managed to send their message without violence. [Our] purpose was to let the members of the General Assembly know they were opposed to any and all gun legislation.”
A second rally planned for July 4 — dubbed “GunStock Rally 2.0” — is being organized by the Virginia Knights and militia groups across the state. It is not aligned with the VCDL. Although he said he was invited to speak by the militia groups, Van Cleave says he declined and disavows any connection with the effort. The Virginia Knights’ 19-year-old leader, Mike Dunn, says the group is “socially diverse and nonviolent” and describes it as one of the larger grassroots militia groups in Virginia. He says he anticipates between 10,000 and 15,000 people will show up on July 4.
The rally will feature Republican State Sen. Amanda Chase, who has declared she is running for governor in 2021, as keynote speaker. Chase says organizers have promised that the event will be nonviolent and peaceful.
“There is so much frustration and anger that our personal freedoms are being eroded by the government that people are ready to take a stand and protect their rights from being usurped,” she says, while blasting the local Republican Party leadership for their lack of resolve to push back the Democrats’ efforts on gun control. “They basically just rolled over.” Chase promises to fight to undo the changes that the 2020 session enacted.
Democratic Party leaders are not worried that will happen. Eileen Filler-Corn, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, says in a statement provided by spokesperson Tyler Javonillo, “In November, Virginians called out loud and clear for meaningful legislation to address gun violence in the commonwealth. They demanded, and we delivered.”
Kristin DuMont, a volunteer with Virginia Moms Demand Action, isn’t worried either. “We worked hard to elect a gun-sense majority in both the Virginia House and Senate, and we are thrilled to see meaningful gun violence prevention legislation passed for the first time in many years,” she says. “We know that the result of this legislation will be lives saved.”
Like other volunteers, DuMont promises to return to the General Assembly in 2021 to push for additional “common sense gun reform” and to protect the hard-won changes that go into effect July 1.
New Gun Laws
These changes, passed by the General Assembly this year, go into effect July 1:
- Senate Bill 70 and House Bill 2, requiring background checks on all firearm sales in Virginia.
- Senate Bill 240 and House Bill 674, establishing an Extreme Risk Protective Order that creates a legal mechanism for law enforcement to temporarily separate a person from their firearms when they represent a danger to themselves or others. Virginia is now among 19 other states and the District of Columbia in enacting this type of law.
- Senate Bill 69 and House Bill 812, reinstating Virginia’s one-handgun-a-month rule with the goal of helping to curtail stockpiling of firearms and trafficking.
- House Bill 9, requiring gun owners to report their lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement within 48 hours or face a civil penalty.
- House Bill 1083, preventing children from accessing firearms by increasing the penalty for recklessly leaving firearms in their presence.
- Senate Bill 35 and House Bill 421, allowing localities to regulate firearms in public buildings, parks, recreation centers and during permitted events. Gov. Ralph Northam’s amendment clarified the exemption for institutions of higher education.
- Senate Bill 479 and House Bill 1004, prohibiting individuals subject to protective orders from possessing firearms, requiring them to turn over their firearms within 24 hours and certify to the court that they have done so.