Virginia taxpayers to be charged for new gun-control laws

FPI / December 26, 2019

Virginia’s budget bill being pushed by Gov. Ralph Northam includes an appropriation to carry out several new gun-control measures, the lobbying arm of the NRA noted.

Northam, who Democrats have allowed to stay in power despite his racist past which included wearing blackface, is calling for taxpayers to fund an appropriation for the Corrections Special Reserve Fund in order to provide for the “increase in the operating cost of adult correctional facilities resulting from the enactment” of the state’s gun-control measures, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) wrote in an op-ed for The Daily Caller on Dec. 24.

Among the gun-control laws that will be covered by the allocation are “a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, the criminalization of private firearms transfers, and gun confiscation orders issued without due process,” the ILA wrote.

Northam “and his Michael Bloomberg-bought allies in the General Assembly now want the state’s hard-working taxpayers to foot the bill for their unconstitutional schemes,” the ILA wrote. “Aside from the insult of forcing law-abiding Virginia taxpayers to pay for the diminution of their rights, the gun control allocation is a severe waste of resources. Northam’s Bloomberg-backed gun control measures will not make Virginia safer.”

The ILA noted that studies have shown that bans on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms would not reduce violent crime.

“Long guns of any description are rarely used in violent crime,” the ILA noted, citing FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data breaking down homicides by weapon type.

In 2018, the FBI reported that there were five times as many individuals listed as killed with “knives or cutting instruments,” than with rifles of any kind. The data also showed that rifles were listed as being used in less homicides than “blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)” or “personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.).”

A 1997 Department of Justice-funded study of the 1994 federal “assault weapons” ban determined that “At best, the assault weapons ban can have only a limited effect on total gun murders, because the banned weapons and magazines were never involved in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders.”

A 2004 follow-up Department of Justice-funded study came to a similar conclusion. The study determined that “AWs [assault weapons] and LCMs [large capacity magazines] were used in only a minority of gun crimes prior to the 1994 federal ban,” “relatively few attacks involve more than 10 shots fired,” and “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

Additionally, so-called “universal” background checks do not stop criminals from obtaining firearms, the ILA noted.

According to the DOJ, 75 percent of criminals in state and federal state prison who had possessed a firearm during their offense acquired the firearm through theft, “Off the street/underground market,” or “from a family member or friend, or as a gift.” Less than one percent got firearms from dealers or non-dealers at gun shows. ATF has reported, “[t]he most frequent type of trafficking channel identified in ATF investigations is straw purchasing from federally licensed firearms dealers.”

The ILA concluded: “Tax-paying Virginians should not have to foot the bill for Northam and Bloomberg’s radical attack on their fundamental rights.”

Free Press International