Virginia Epitomizes Firearms Policy Fight

By Ready to Fire News Last updated Dec 20, 2019

Virginia is one of the original 13 colonies that broke free from the British Empire. That makes Virginia a national leader in embracing the Second Amendment. It also affirms why our Founding Fathers made the right to bear arms second only to free speech among the Bill of Rights. They understood a strong central authority most fears an informed and armed populace capable of removing despotic rulers at the ballot box, and affirming those choices with armed resistance when necessary.

The U.S. has not experienced significant armed resistance to federal policies since the West was tamed – whether done rightly or wrongly. Nor has any state. Yet, Virginia now illustrates a growing dichotomy across the nation. The dichotomy divides those who support the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, with those who oppose the Second Amendment and want guns removed from our free society.

The Commonwealth of Virginia recently voted in an anti-gun governor and assembly. Buoyed by money from billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety front, anti-gun Democrats seized control of Virginia’s Legislature and governorship. That led to a spate of anti-gun laws enacted that now are resisted widely throughout the Old Dominion.

Anti-gun Virginia lawmakers want to ban ownership of commonly owned semiautomatic firearms, including the AR-15 and many varieties of shotguns. They use terms like “assault rifle” to describe firearms they want outlawed and forcibly removed from residential homes across the land. In other words, they want to turn law-abiding owners of firearms into criminals if they do not surrender firearms that are among the most popular and most effective self-defense implements ever devised.

When you affix “assault” to the description of an inanimate object, it suddenly stops becoming an effective tool for self-defense and fun outings to a gun range for target shooting. It’s only purpose is to “assault” others, in the minds of the anti-gunners. And that is what they want uninformed voters and those who are wholly ignorant of firearms to think.

If the anti-gunners in Virginia have their way, they would impose an incredibly unpopular and unwanted ban on perfectly harmless firearms owned by law-abiding residents. Fortunately, those residents and local units are opposing the anti-gun agenda of the far-left. A wide majority of counties and local units in Virginia have declared themselves to be Second Amendment Sanctuaries that put the U.S. Constitution ahead of local gun-grabbing lawmakers.

Facing a potential civil rebellion within the Old Dominion, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has threatened sanctions against local units that refuse to enforce the newly enacted and highly controversial anti-gun laws. Even more anti-gun laws are in the works, and they could impose prison sentences on current owners of AR-15s and other firearms the anti-gunners want banned and removed from civil societies.

The extreme measures enacted by anti-gun leftists in Virginia do not reflect the values of the residents they seek to disarm. Their offensive against the Second Amendment is forcing local units and law enforcement to choose whether to enforce laws they view as violating a right supported since before the U.S. became a nation. With the likes of Michael Bloomberg seeking the Democrat Party’s nomination to oppose President Donald Trump, Virginia well may reflect the national state of firearms policy very soon.