While some gun owners prefer to complacently ignore legislation until it passes, that’s a luxury we really can’t afford.
Last year, Virginia Senate Bill 16 was pre-filed in anticipation of the Democrats impending takeover of the state legislature. This bill expands the class of “assault weapons” and bans them outright. No grandfathering.
Facing a remarkable backlash, Governor Blackface Northam tried to reassure firearm owners that the bill would be amended to grandfather in existing “assault weapons,” and “only” require those owners to register them. They could keep the guns they already own. For now.
Fast forward to yesterday: thanks to the Virginia Citizens Defense League, we learned that Governor Coonman is still supporting SB 16, and is already requesting a multi-million dollar appropriation to enforce it, even though the bill hasn’t even made it through committee, much less passed into law.
Governor “Blackface” is supporting SB 16, which would ban commonly-owned firearms in more than one million Virginia households — a ban that would even outlaw sporting weapons such as the Mossberg 930 Snow Goose.
The Governor has requested $4 million and 18 law-enforcement positions to enforce his gun ban — a request that could be the preparatory steps for confiscating the guns which would be banned by SB 16.
Why would he need $4 million and 18 more officers to enforce a mere ban on the future sales of firearms?
Clearly, despite his earlier claims — his lips were moving, after all — he’ll need those resources to enforce confiscation, possibly including compensation for seized weapons to make it somewhat more politically palatable.
I suspect Northam’s intent was to slide the funding through when — he thought — gun owners wouldn’t notice. He’d then use the fact that the money had already been appropriated to rationalize passing SB 16 as-is.
Gee, the money’s there…it’s wasted if we don’t pass the confiscation bill.
That’s the sort of thinking that makes… sense… to gun-grabbing Democrats.
That is why gun owners cannot passively wait for bills to die or pass, assured we’ll eventually find out what’s in it, and only then react.
Call it political situational awareness.