Virginia second amendment sanctuary gun control
Courtesy VCDL.org
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By Dennis Petrocelli, MD

If the Bloomberg-financed gun confiscation crowd gets anything right, it is their consistently beguiling messaging. In the same way that The Force in Star Wars bends the will of the weak-minded, confiscationists use language that requires us first to disabuse the public of their empty rhetoric before we can actually discuss the facts about firearms.

In Virginia, the General Assembly has become not just a gun-free zone, but also a fact-free zone, rife with ad hominem attacks on law abiding gun owners.

The newly elected Democrat Assembly majority wasted no time declaring war on us. Two days into the session, Majority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, led the charge to ban the longstanding tradition of citizens carrying guns at the state Capitol and the Pocahontas Building, which houses the offices of the state legislators.

Our goal has got to be to keep everybody safe,” she proclaimed. Were we previously endangered?

The prior rule allowed Virginians with a concealed handgun permit to carry openly or concealed in the capitol. In all the years this has been in effect, there have been NO instances of citizens misusing firearms.

Eileen Filler-Corn
Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Filler-Corn perpetuates the idea that the presence of guns is inherently dangerous, and those who carry guns will do harm. Although her statement is a vacuous attack on gun owners, notice how difficult it is to argue with her sound bite: she’s for “safety,” after all.

Virginia State Police data reveal that there are 642,396 permit holders in the Commonwealth. On average, 733 permits are revoked annually, or roughly 0.11%—barely one tenth of one percent. That is an impressive statistic supporting just how law abiding concealed carry permit holders are.

John Lott’s data, taken from across the country, reflects the Virginia data that concealed carry permit holders are not only exceptionally law abiding, they are even more law abiding than the police. Additionally, as the numbers of CHP holders in Virginia swelled from the 400,000s to the 600,000s, the murder rate per 100,000 dropped from 5.71 to 4.59.

In other words, in the pictorial parlance of our times:

Not to be outdone, State Senator Dave Marsden doubled down on his “hot mic” insults to gun owners by claiming there are “mental health issues among many 2A supporters.”  Such rhetoric ought to be considered in the context of the proposed “red flag” legislation that seeks to disarm gun owners, sans due process, who are deemed dangerous by courts, but provides no treatment for any related mental health condition.

This is a standard ruse in their playbook: guilt by association.

These fact-free attacks shouldn’t surprise us because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Puppet master Michael Bloomberg has been slinging these attacks for some time now. Although his missives ought to be read, I’d put this one at the top of the list:

“If you want to have a gun in your house, I think you’re pretty stupid—particularly if you have kids—but I guess you have a right to do that.”

Not only does Bloomberg have armed security who accompany him on vacation despite local laws, he wants armed personnel monitor your children at his graduate school, while they learn about “gun safety”, AKA confiscation.

This is New York City-sized hypocrisy that he wants to inflict on the entire country.

Bloomberg’s animosity towards gun owners was most apparent following the recent attack in a Texas church that was ended in six seconds by an armed, prepared congregant. It is impossible to view the live-streamed footage of that event and not recognize that many more lives would have been lost if the attacker had not been stopped immediately.

Despite the obvious, Bloomberg opined, “[You] can’t let the average American have guns” as “it’s the job of law enforcement to have guns and to decide when to shoot.”

At least he’s candid and clear. Translated into the common language for stupid average Americans like us, he said, “I don’t care about the Second Amendment. You don’t have the right to keep and bear arms. I don’t care whether you live or die, but I’ll keep my armed guards.”

There is no evidence that Michael Bloomberg is familiar with average Americans, nor is there any evidence that he understands the depth of our commitment to our personal liberty and our natural right to defend ourselves.

I was at the Capitol lobbying my lawmakers yesterday on the 13th and I’ll be there again on the 20th, asking them to oppose Governor Northam’s gun confiscation agenda. My message is straightforward:

Dear Delegate Carr and Senator Hashmi,

I am one of your constituents and I am asking you to oppose Governor Northam’s gun control bills. Other states have demonstrated that gun control doesn’t stop crime.  Virginia’s 600,000-plus concealed handgun permit owners are more law abiding than the police and are merely asking to be left alone. The “scary” rifles, pistols, magazines, and suppressors Northam seeks to ban are lawfully used for sport, hunting, and self-defense and are implicated in vanishingly small numbers of crimes in the Commonwealth, for example compared to hammers and fists. Keep in mind that guns are used lawfully and defensively vastly more often than they are used criminally. 

Instead of focusing on guns, I ask that you focus on the causes of violence: untreated mental illness, and gang and drug violence that is endemic in impoverished inner cities. Please increase mental health funding to address the ⅔ of Virginia gun-related deaths that are suicides by providing evidence-based treatments such as crisis support and therapy, and please support Project Ceasefire legislation that targets the great majority of the remaining ⅓ of gun-related deaths in the Commonwealth, criminal homicides.

Respectfully yours,

Dennis Petrocelli, MD

Board Certified in Forensic Psychiatry

Contributing Member, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership

 

Dennis Petrocelli, MD is a clinical and forensic psychiatrist who has practiced for nearly 20 years in Virginia. He took up shooting in 2019 for mind-body training and self-defense, and is in the fight for Virginians’ gun rights.

This post was originally published at drgo.us and is reprinted here with permission. 

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65 COMMENTS

  1. I want people to start asking the question why a person who thinks the Chinese Government isn’t a dictatorship should be trusted with a monopoly of force.

    • Because it will be different this time. But seriously never let anyone who doesn’t respect your liberty have power over it.

  2. >>Although her statement is a vacuous attack on gun owners, notice how difficult it is to argue with her sound bite: she’s for “safety,” after all.<<

    It's not hard to argue against that at all. Just say "We all want to be safe — especially from tyrannical politicians."

    • If she is for safety, why is she disarming citizens and making them defenseless victims for criminals? She is making citizens LESS SAFE as they will no longer be able to defend against rapes, attempted murder, burglary, etc.

      Democrats who push gun control should be charged with accessories before the fact, and enabling criminals.

      • “…why is she disarming citizens and making them defenseless victims for criminals?”

        Because the biggest criminals are in the legislature?

        • It’s more nuanced than that.

          The real thing in play here is to force the public at large to have to rely on only the police to protect them. And when crime inevitably skyrockets, for the public to have to rely on Democrats to ‘save’ them.

          Stalin once used a visual example to make his point. In sub-zero weather, he asked that a live chicken be delivered to him.

          When the bird arrived, he plucked all the feathers from it and set it on the ground by his feet. The freezing and shivering bird got as close as it possibly could to Stalin’s boot to keep warm.

          “That is how you rule the people”, he said while laughing.

          And that’s what the Democrats want, to make us be totally dependent on an authority figure for their safety and their very survival.

          Look at what’s happening in England. They banned the citizens from owning firearms So the thugs started using knives. England is now seriously debating banning kitchen knives.

          That’s what they want for us, and for us to be grateful that they are doing it.

          Fuck that noise…

  3. Don’t forget Bloomberg is a die-hard racist. He racially profiled African Americans in NYC with stop and frisk even after it was proven to be more likely to harass innocents than turn up criminals and many innocent people were framed. Lots of lawsuits after the fact. He fought in court to continue to harass Black New Yorkers.

    “In August 2013 a federal court ruled that the NYPD’s policy was violating constitutional rights. Bloomberg, at the time, said he wasn’t going to change tactics overnight and he hoped the appeal process would allow the current practice to continue through the end of his administration.

    “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a lot of people dying,” he said then.

    Time would show that decreasing the stops dramatically did not result in mass carnage on the city’s streets.” – Politico

    And he said at a conference in Aspen he supports gun control because black people can’t be trusted with guns and if they have arms they’re just gonna go around killing each other. It’s on YouTube.

    He’s a scumbag who has no problem violating a person’s constitutional rights even after courts tell him to stop. Imagine him as president.

    • And Bloomberg seems to think the NYPD are on a par with SEAL Team Six. In reality the NYPD couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from the inside.

  4. Majority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, led the charge to ban the longstanding tradition of citizens carrying guns at the state Capitol and the Pocahontas Building, which houses the offices of the state legislators.

    “Our goal has got to be to keep everybody safe,” she said.

    ****
    No, congresscritter. That is not the job of any state-level government. If it were, I dare say it’s been a failure everywhere for a very long time. Especially in those areas where your Leftist Dem colleagues have been at the helm and allowed their ships to run aground. And you want to follow their lead onto the rocks?

    • Not to mention that we were ALREADY safe. No one has ever been harmed at the capitol as a result of the previous rules.

      As usual, it’s about control, not safety. Lies and the lying Democrat liars who tell them…

  5. All Virginia Dimwits and Bloomingburger are all putzes..

    For those not up on their Yiddish.
    putz.
    NORTH AMERICAN
    informal
    a stupid or worthless person

    Not quit interchangeable with schmuck, but close enough to be the same here.

  6. In Virginia, the General Assembly has become not just a gun-free zone, but also a fact-free zone, rife with ad hominem attacks on law abiding gun owners.

    No surprise there: Progressives have no reservations channeling hatred toward people that are not part of their “tribe”. Sadly, that is part-and-parcel of the human experience.

  7. I am glad that they are finally pulling the curtain back on their agenda. It’s just too bad that so many POTG took so long to realize what has been going on all these years. Hopefully, this is a watershed moment but I’m still reading, mostly on other forums, how we need to “comply” and “present a good face” for the media and the politicians, let the courts settle it, etc.

    • Hopefully at the next state election people remember to go out and actually VOTE! If you don’t vote, don’t complain about the result.

    • They get more honest in regards to screwing their enemies once they have power. Took them no time to start attacking gun rights.

      • Attack them back where it hurts, abortion. Many new cases are coming up before SCOTUS re: abortion. Keep hitting them there where it hurts them most, over and over and over again. As one would do when trapped in the jaws of a vicious wild animal. At least the right to keep and bear arms was recognized in the Constitution, abortion was recognized by SCOTUS. The Second Amendment also states, shall not be infringed. I did not find any such terminology in the Roe decision.

  8. Pennsylvania is spinning its wheels because only at the Federal level will we get some sanity back and require that a person who manufactures a gun at home must put a serial number on it and register it with the Federal Government or at the very least keep records of his actions and turn them in to the ATF when he sells the gun and the sale must go through a background check first. All this will be determined by a new Federal Law or simply by the ATF changing its regulations which they are masters at doing which will result on a complete ban on home made guns period. In the past they have ruled, had a brief citizen bitch session and then gave the citizens the finger and passed the new regulations. The ATF is reviewing what their options may be as this has turned into a nightmare for law enforcement as more and more lunatics and criminals are turning to the home made gun that cannot be traced.

    Foreign countries are scratching their heads and wondering if Lunatics are now running the U.S. Government and the answer is yes Lunatics really are in charge.

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    ╱┊┊┊┊┊▔╲▂▂╱▔┊┊┊┊┊╲
    “VLAD The Troll !”

  10. ☆☆☆☆☆☆▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅
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    “2020 Make ALL the DEMOCRAPS unemployed !!!”

    • I hate to give you the bad news but your rapidly run out of them, if indeed there ever was such a thing.

      Some years ago I watched a special on Alaska about pioneer families living out in the middle of nowhere. The Feds found out where they were living and swooped in with Helicopters demanding to see how they were caring for and educating their children. So much for the myth of the pioneer family still living independently of the long arm of the government.

    • No guns should mean no guns including law enforcement. I am sure a stern talking to from an LEO will deter any mass shooter. Stop or I will say Stop again only louder! Something like that should do the trick.

  11. If it goes hot do these Democrats not realize people know where they live?

    History of resistance tells me their will be political assassinations and bombings among other acts of violence.

    They won’t be left out of what’s to come. History says so.

    The 2nd Amendment is the remedy for government TYRANNY.

  12. There are mental issues among ‘some’ 2A supporters… but there are plenty of issues among politicians as well. Perhaps we should ban all democratic politicians from the internet because Anthony Weiner can’t go five minutes without sending photos of his schlong to kids?

    • There was a report about the pharmacy that supplies drugs to Congress. Apparently there’s some Congresscritters taking drugs for dementia and other age-related brain issues like Alzheimer’s.

      • A few years ago, wasn’t it?

        A neat expose. HIPPA kept them from attaching names to the prescriptions, but what drugs the pharmacy ordered was public record, thanks to the freedom of information act…

  13. Their message craft is quite good…

    If taking away your guns is safer, you must be dangerous. If you cooperate, implies you agree. They don’t *say* it, so the accused can’t argue back. Worse you know what they’ve implied, so get pissed off. Makes you look guilty, and unhinged — dangerous, even.

    Any variation on rejecting their premise stops this in its tracks. Then, make them make their case. That pisses them off, n better you can leave presuppositions lying around in turn. Dont assert yr argument, but use it to refute theirs.

    “We gotta keep guns out for safety.”

    “Well, maybe better to keep out folks from groups that have shot up CongressCritters, but banning all the D people seems a bit fraught. Maybe just exclude the Bernie-bros: national D-party did that once already.”

    • a lot of states ban guns in government buildings…and have for some time…obviously this is something new to Virginians…and a measure such as this passed amid all this rancor is suspect…but you’re not going to win this argument….peaceful non-compliance, however has proven a viable strategy in a number of places…and implies a political threat that’s hard to ignore….

      • Peaceful non-compliance has its virtues, but not when it’s unknown and invisible. Other civil rights movements utilized sit-ins, parades, bus rides and so forth to defy the law and help sway public opinion. I’m not sure how keeping your unregistered AR-15 buried in the backyard moves the needle.

        About the only ones actually pulling such stunts in the pro-2A community were the open carrying rifle folks, who were ridiculed for their efforts, despite winning licensed open handgun carry in Texas.

  14. It’s like playing pool, actually.

    – You aren’t playing this shot, but setting up the next. (The response yr gonna get.)
    – You aren’t playing the object ball, but the q. (The handle you’ll get for yr next move.)
    – The point is to leave yrself with good moves, n them with none.

    Having some kind of argument, retort, or evidence doesn’t win the game. Like sinking the shot, how you do it matters.

  15. “If this is such a big deal, why didn’t you vote?”

    “We never figured on this level of insanity out ou y’all. Dont worry: we’ll be voting next time against all of you. Yr too crazy to leave in charge of , well, anything, really.”

  16. The founding fathers would be shooting by now. it’s time to form up units and hunt these people. Drag them into the street and what ever happens, happens. The dem’s are the new Nazi party, lies and corruption. Am I the only one excited about the next revolution? The only real change comes out of the end of a barrel.

    • inflammatory language and threats just serve the interests of the opposition and strengthen their position…we should avoid falling into this trap…

    • That excitement is misplaced. Chaotic situations have no friends. Theres enough blood and suffering that those who remain neutral still get to share it. After all that the outcome could still be a shitburger. Stay frosty.

  17. And all the people shouting they won’t comply are now urging protesters to comply with this infringement… I’m thinking of a four letter word starting with c…

  18. “Filler-Corn“ is that some newfangled kind of high fructose corn syrup? I don’t recognize that crop. Maybe another Monsanto GMO Monster?

  19. Well, word just got out that Northam is attempting to have ALL firearms banned from the Capital grounds

    I look forward to an article about THAT development in the morning.

    • Yup, Gov “Blackface” Northam and his Dem/Prog legislature have instituted new rules stating that ordinary citizens can’t carry in the state capital building or on capital grounds in Richmond. In this morning’s (Wed, 15th Jan) news, I heard that he’s planning to take steps to prevent Charlottesville-like violence on 20th Jan when the big pro-gun rally is supposed to take place at the capital. It was mentioned that he’s worried about all the pro-gun people coming in from out-of-state to attend, with the news broadcast intimating that they’re all a bunch of violence-prone armed hicks. Nothing was said about the antifa angels who will probably be there, too. So look for metal detectors, surveillance cameras, National Guard troops, lots of police and restrictive rules for the pro-rights demonstration.

  20. While they have long envied California’s socialists, Virginia Democrats from the big urban/suburban areas have long been really jealous that the next-door People’s Socialist Republic of Maryland’s Liberal/Progressive/Socialist/Democrats have got that state so far ahead of Virginia toward Marxist nirvanna, so now that they have a majority in Virginia they figure they have a lot of catching up to do before the public catches on and bounces most of them from their legislative seats. In addition to gun control, the Dems have introduced bills to impose higher state gas taxes (on top of county/city gas taxes) and a bunch more standard progressive measures on the people of this state. May they have eternal itching without benefit of scratching.

  21. At this point, let them jam through multiple bills with only 5 minutes of discussion and no meaningful factual findings to provide any basis, let alone a “rational basis” for the action. This will greatly support legal challenges as there will be little to no record to support the government position.

    If we’re truly fortunate the US Supreme Court will announce a decision requiring a “strict scrutiny” standard of review for Second Amendment rights soon. None of these laws will pass strict Constitutional scrutiny.

  22. Everyone knows that m. Bloomberg is paying people to do and say things normally they wouldn’t do. That’s what happens when judges and law-makers turns into criminal their self, (greet) what m.b. is e-legal, our law-makers and justice system, is crooked, if u have money they look the other way,if u don’t u r arrested, think for a second, if a officer pulled u over, for say drinking a beer, but you didn’t want your spouse to know, so you offered the officer some money, to just forget about it. You should be arrested, that’s the law,but if you have money and know someone in the justice system, or person’s in high places, maybe even your drug dealer, and you theater to let your friends know! All charges would be dropped. Because You were able to buy your way out. ALOT of the personal in America’s justice system is greedy and would sell their soul for a few bucks. The point is m. Bloomberg is committing a crime, and should be put in jail.

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