The new year is here. It’s also a new decade. Every rollover from one year to the next brings with it changes to the political landscape. This year is no exception. In November Virginia voted to make their legislature Democratic as well as the governorship. Almost as soon as the ballot counting had ended, state legislators began floating the idea of widespread gun confiscation.
On November 18, State Sen. Dick Saslaw introduced a bill that he will sponsor in the 2020 legislative session. This bill will outlaw the possession of certain firearms. Every rifle of the common AR-15 design and a great many pistols and shotguns in common use for personal defense, target shooting, and hunting would be banned.
Please note this is not just banning the sale or transfer of such weapons. It criminalizes the possession of such weapons. It would be a Class 6 felony. In Virginia, Class 6 felonies are punishable by imprisonment for between one and five years.
Like all gun control laws, Saslaw’s bill will limit the rights of the law-abiding, not the criminal or terrorist. The prison budget has been increased in anticipation of gun-related arrests. The fact that this law would be unconstitutional is irrelevant to lawmakers intent upon exercising top-down control over the common people.
The backlash to this idea was significant. Some eighty-four counties and cities throughout the state pledged to ignore and resist these measures. This led some elected lawmakers to call for the use of the National Guard to carry out gun confiscation from law-abiding citizens. And Governor Ralph “Blackface” Northam will not rule out this idea.
David Lanza notes,
These gun control laws have nothing to do with making people safer. Disarming citizens is the ultimate goal. Once disarmed, citizens would then become subjects unable to defend themselves from legal or illegal terrorism.
The gun control proposals floating around the country ignore the old axiom that when seconds count, the cops are only minutes away. Those seconds can prove to be an eternity. We saw this proved once again on Sunday when an armed citizen stopped evil from shooting up a church.
The reason the Founders put the Second Amendment in the Constitution was seen Sunday at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, near Forth Worth where good guys with guns stopped a bad guy with a gun.
In just six seconds from the start of the shooting, the perpetrator was shot dead by an armed citizen. Despite this quick response, two men were killed by the perpetrator. If there were no armed citizens in the congregation (video shows seven people drawing their weapons), how horrific would the bloodshed have been? How long would it have taken for law enforcement to arrive?
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said Sunday was “a horrific day in Tarrant County. Today evil walked boldly among us,” he said. “But let me remind you, good people raised up and stopped it before it got worse.”
There are a lot of “bad guys” out there, but the progressive Democrats don’t seem to care much for the safety of law-abiding citizens. Failed presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is one of them as he tweeted,
So saddened to hear about another church shooting in Texas, this one in White Settlement near Fort Worth. Clearly what we are doing in Texas, what we are doing in this country, when it comes to guns is not working. https://t.co/krwcpL1lih
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) December 29, 2019
I would opine that what Texas has, worked. It may not be perfect but, more people are alive today than would have been if O’Rourke had his way and all citizens were disarmed. If the criminals become more aware that there are more and more armed citizens willingly to defend themselves in this constitutionally protected manner, the number of such shootings should diminish.
It is time for all citizens to actively resist any diminishment of the Second Amendment. Perhaps the best slogan is a simple one.