Everyone knows about the gun rationing repeal, which is great news. But some other more minor improvements are moving in the Old Dominion. One bill to provide civil immunity for people who defend themselves, another to prevent localities from operating gun buybacks not authorized by ordinance, and also requires guns obtained from buybacks be sold to FFLs, and destroyed only if they cannot be sold. The third establishes a more definitive fine structure ($25) for someone who can’t produce a permit upon request. Looks like a vote could happen also on a bill to eliminate the fingerprint requirement.
I’m particularly interested in the bill on buybacks. Personally, I don’t have a problem with a program that gets guns out of the hands of people that don’t really want them. What I have a problem with are when folks dump valuable historical pieces on a  buyback, only to have a piece of history destroyed. This way, FFLs will get dibs on buyback guns. The junk will still get destroyed, and I’m fine with that, but dealers will have an opportunity to rescue anything of value. That seems to be the kind of common sense reform I can get behind.
That might warrant getting an FFL.
One thing I don’t like about gun “buybacks” is that I’m convinced they are, or at least can be used to pad “crime gun” statistics.
Another good bill that I think is headed to Gov. McDonnell’s desk is HB 20, to clarify that the Second Amendment cannot be suspended for inclement weather.
I’d really like to know what was done to HB48, because the version that passed the House was very bad for us; it was more restrictive than current law in terms of defending yourself or anyone else in your home.
Frankly it’d probably be better off getting spiked and starting fresh next year with a clean civil immunity law, because we’ve already got a castle doctrine here.
Diomed: It passed the Senate, too, but there were changes made. I believe it has to go back to the House for those changes to be approved. Since the Senate put in, word for word, the civil liability protections that the House had taken out, I don’t think it has a very good chance of passing.
More importantly, the Senate version added this:
That’s not as good as doing it right, but it should at least keep it from doing any significant damage if it gets through the House and the Governor.
(The House version can be found here.)
“I don’t have a problem with a program that gets guns out of the hands of people that don’t really want them.”
I kinda like pawn shops too!
The item not on the list yet is increasing funding and/or changing the manner of VA State Police NICS checks.
If you buy a gun in VA, the NICS check goes to the VSP. There are only six people who work there, and as hard as they might work they cannot keep up. It is routine that people get delayed – not because there is a problem with their background, but because the VSP could not process the check. This is most apparent to first-time buyers who have not been run through the VSP system yet.
Gun shows are big business in VA and the last one I went to offered some facts: over 1 million delays because the VSP could not do the “instant” check. Some of those delays take days – I had one stretch two days, and it cost me a lot of drive time and gas.
People are learning to not buy guns in VA if you want them the same day. Especially on gun-show weekends. That is bad for VA sellers, for gun shows and for gun owners. The VA assembly got word of this recently. Hopefully they fix it.
Unfortunately, that bill (applying to long guns) failed this year. The anti’s won that one with their usual mix of exaggeration, half truths, and lies by omission.
They managed to consistently and successfully publicize it as allowing people to “buy guns without a state background check”. While that statement is technically true, they consistently framed it in a manner that made it look like “buy guns without any background check”, always conveniently forgetting to mention that there would still be a federal background check.
All they have are lies, but they’re very experienced at lying in a way that gets them what they want.