Yesterday, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R), signed into a law a repeal of the Commonwealth’s one handgun per month restriction. Although it won’t go into effect until 1 July, I haven’t figured out who it is really going to affect. The easy way around the restriction was to have a valid Concealed Carry Permit which allows you to purchase multiple handguns per month. They aren’t hard to get, so long as you are qualified. The only people the law really hurt were those who wouldn’t get a permit.
Already, those in the business of gun control (aka fear mongerers) are saying that is is going to result in widespread bloodshed.
But thats why the the law was enacted almost 20 years ago in the first place. It was to satisfy New York and other states who claimed that the weapons used by their criminals were purchased in Virginia. And, that was a ridiculous reason, to restrict the rights of Virginians because those in other states can’t control themselves. So, in some ways, a wrong’s been set right.
Tags: Virginia
Criminals don’t follow the law. Gun laws are mostly pointless because those it seeks to restrict don’t follow the law. I know the anti-gun crows are terribly afraid of deaths caused by guns, but maybe they should focus on making laws to prevent people from killing each other.
OH YEAH, MURDER IS ALREADY AGAINST THE LAW.
I will never understand why people think that people will obey arbitrary laws about mechanical objects when they won’t obey laws against something as basic and jarring as murder.
Also, has anyone ever noticed the unreasonably high numbers of anti-gunners who themselves aren’t legally allowed to own guns? Felonies, mental instability, domestic abuse, and drug addiction all are pretty common in the crowd I know personally that screams the loudest about melting all the guns down and living in a perfect utopia. They are also the first to complain about laws restricting their rights and preventing them from doing things they like to do, all while spending countless hours talking about how they wish my rights would go away.
Also, more on topic, I’m happy to see this silly law repealed. Plenty of ways to buy multiple handguns at the same time (private sales or outright illegal purchases) so this was only hurting people who were interested in following the law.
Like I said in the article, it was perfectly legal to buy multiple handguns per month. Just get a CCW permit. The only folks who couldn’t do it were those who wouldn’t or couldn’t get a CCW permit.
On the surface the law seems reasonable, why would anyone need to buy more than one handgun a month? But when you really think about it the law doesn’t really do anything to prevent crime, a person can cause plenty of harm with just one gun and multiple magazines. I can’t really think of a shooting that’s taken place where someone used multiple handguns, much less multiple handguns bought in a 1 month period.
I agree with Mike and one of my biggest arguments against many of the stupid gun laws we have, esp. in CA where I live, is that criminals don’t care about the law; if they did they wouldn’t be criminals would they?
I see you’ve never been to a gun show where two amazing deals (hard to imagine these days) presented themselves at the same time. Sometimes the freedom to go “hey, I want to buy both of these pistols because BECAUSE” is all the reason one needs. Also, what if someone purchased a handgun and HATED it and then wanted to purchase one to replace it? The Administrator has a solid point that all one had to do was get a permit, but even that feels a bit flimsy to me. What if you needed a permit to buy more than TV a month? Why would anyone need more than one TV per month? Most people don’t, but when you move into a new place and decide for the sake of having matching hardware to buy two of the same tvs for different parts of your house it presents a problem. You can put forth that guns and tvs are different all you want, and I’ll agree as tv is bad for you, but it’s doesn’t change the fact that a limit on the number of machines one can buy a month is silly.