OPINION:
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger promised during her campaign that she would sign a lot of gun control legislation. She said, “I will sign legislation into law to make progress on these issues to keep Virginia families safe.”
Yet common sense is lacking in the bills that will probably pass the Virginia legislature. The Democrats started with more than a dozen, and the most striking thing about them is that none will result in fewer criminals having access to guns. All they will do is create heavy burdens for people who follow the law.
Senate Bill 1109 would require a permit from the Virginia State Police to purchase a gun. This goes far beyond the usual background check, which the gun seller conducts right away. It is almost certainly unconstitutional for several reasons, not least because it has never been done before. That conflicts with the Supreme Court’s reasoning in the Bruen decision, which held that for gun control legislation to be constitutional, it must be consistent with laws from the 1800s and 1900s.
That’s just the beginning.
The bills also include a ban on assault weapons and a limit on magazine capacity. The ban doesn’t include weapons already in possession, but it does ban high-capacity magazines. The “grandfathering” doesn’t affect magazines, and it makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor to possess a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. That would instantly make thousands of Virginia gun owners criminals.
The “assault weapons” ban would make it a crime to sell, rent, transfer or otherwise possess such weapons manufactured after 2026. The “transfer” prohibition will ban passing on such guns as an inheritance.
The bill, Senate Bill 749, bans weapons that have one or more of the following characteristics: “(i) a folding, telescoping, or collapsible stock; (ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the rifle; (iii) a second handgrip or a protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand; (iv) a grenade launcher; (v) a flare launcher; (vi) a sound suppressor; (vii) a flash suppressor; (viii) a muzzle brake; (ix) a muzzle compensator; (x) a threaded barrel capable of accepting (a) a sound suppressor, (b) a flash suppressor, (c) a muzzle brake, or (d) a muzzle compensator; or (xi) any characteristic of like kind as enumerated in clauses (i) through (x).”
The bill essentially classifies as an assault weapon any rifle with a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.
I have some knowledge of weapons. It’s constructive to compare those characteristics with the old Browning .50-caliber machine gun, which is already illegal to own under the National Firearms Act of 1934. It is known to the troops as “Ma Deuce” because its designation is an M2.
I have fired the M2 twice, once at Quantico Marine Base’s 1,000-yard range and once wearing night vision goggles, both times under the supervision of a couple of former Navy SEAL pals.
The M2 is an extraordinary weapon. As a total rookie, I was able to hit the barrel of a tank gun at 1,000 yards quite easily. Wearing night-vision goggles, I was able to hit targets at shorter range just as easily.
The Ma Deuce doesn’t have a collapsible stock. It doesn’t have a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously from the action of the gun, nor does it have a grenade launcher, flare launcher, sound suppressor, muzzle brake, muzzle compensator, threaded barrel capable of accepting a sound suppressor, muzzle brake or muzzle compensator. (It can be fitted with a flash suppressor.)
That won’t make it legal for a Virginia resident to possess, but it does show that those trying to ban “assault weapons” don’t have a clue what an “assault weapon” is and just want to ban anything that looks like an AR-15.
The people behind the proposed ban don’t care whether it passes a constitutionality test. They want their laws to stand until, years from now, they are reversed by the Supreme Court.
Ms. Spanberger ran as a moderate, but she appears to be Joseph R. Biden in a blond wig. She isn’t interested in commonsense legislation and will sign anything that passes the Democratic-controlled legislature, including an “assault weapons” ban and a limit on magazine size.
Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, the principal sponsor of the bill, is a native of Bangladesh. Mr. Salim said at a hearing on the bill, “This approach will gradually take the weapons off the street without retroactively making it a crime to own a weapon that was legally purchased.”
No, it won’t.
If Virginia Democrats wanted to make people safer, they would be legislating requirements for tougher sentences for the commission of a crime using a gun. They don’t care. They just want to score political points.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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