The Washington Post are taking Mark Warner to task for getting behind the bill to force DC to comply with Heller:
It was jarring, however, to see Mr. Warner take a position at odds with his well-groomed image of a moderate. As he knows, D.C. officials already are working to bring the city in compliance with the ruling of the high court, and Mr. Warner would never countenance for Virginia a law as extreme as that proposed for the District.
What? Do Journalists even bother to do research anymore? Virginia’s gun laws are in numerous ways more liberal than those proposed for the District of Colombia by Congress. In fact, that is the case in most states. Here’s what you can do in Virginia you can’t do in DC, even if the proposed Heller enforcement bill becomes law:
- Get a license to carry a loaded firearm concealed.
- Carry concealed on a reciprocal license if you’re from another state.
- Carry any firearm loaded, openly, without a license.
- Buy a machine gun, suppressor, or short barreled rifle or shotgun.
- Own pistol ammunition that you don’t own a pistol for.
Mark Warner doesn’t have to countenance a law as “extreme” as the District’s for Virginia. Virginia law is already better than the proposed law for D.C.! And I won’t even get into the fact that Arlington and Fairfax Counties have crime rates that are a fraction of those found on the other side of the Potomac.
The Washington Pest is calling Virginia gun laws “extreme” in the sense that they want us to think that the 2A is extreme, while gun bans are reasonable and perfectly normal.