Handgun Purchase Limit Repeal in Virginia Senate Friday

nbcwashington.com ^ | 2 February, 2012 | Julie Carey

[marktwain]

The State Senate is set to vote Friday on a bill to repeal the law that says people can only buy one handgun per month.

Retired Alexandria police Officer Ken Howard frequently visits a Lorton range to shoot and says the one handgun a month restriction can get in the way if a new firearm catches his eye.

Steven Miller has a gun on layaway at the range because of the one handgun a month rule.

The law has been on the books since it was pushed by Gov. Doug Wilder in 1993 at a time when Virginia guns kept turning up in the hands of East Coast criminals, but with a GOP General Assembly in session, an effort to repeal it has new momentum. The Virginia House of Delegates has already passed a bill and the Senate is on the verge of doing the same.

Gun controls activists have been fighting to keep the rule. Omar Samaha -- whose sister was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre -- fears the Commonwealth will once again become the gun capitol of the South.

But gun rights supporters dispute the claim that lifting one handgun a month will mean more guns in the hands of criminal.

Gun control activists have had more success fighting a bill to allow professors to carry concealed weapons on campus. That bill has not made it out of committee.

[marktwain]

The concept that the government could or should only “allow” certain people to buy guns stands the very concept of American jurisprudence on its head. It presumes that the government knows all, controls all, and should be doing so. It is wrong and ineffective. It is the opposite of preventing criminals from possessing guns.

It is crazy to set up a huge expensive bureaucratic system, require everyone to jump though hoops and prove that they are *not* criminals in order to try, ineffectively, to prevent the few individuals who are not responsible, from having legal access to guns. This is a failed paradigm, and it should be abandoned. To accept the idea that the all gun sales should be monitored by the government, and only allowed to those it deems satisfactory is fundamentally wrong.

The entire idea of the enterprise has always been the death of a thousand cuts, where the restrictions on who can buy, and where, and how and what are continually increased until the number of gun owners is reduced to political insignificance.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

My answer to all these restrictions would be to simply recite the 2nd amendment which says “ The right to own and bear arms will not be infringed!” Any restriction as to time, place, purchase of, etc., is and infringement.

[DYngbld]

The OGAM rule is dumb, but in this guys case if he likes shooting so much, he should just get his CWP. In VA if you have a CWP the one Gun a month rule does not apply.

[palmer]

Among other things, the one handgun a month law makes it illegal to have a PO box on your drivers license and buy a long gun (which are not limited to one a month). Then if you change your license to a street address you still can’t buy the long gun because you’ve changed your address.

[Boomer One]

Virginia gets a lot of blame from DC and NY as being a “supplier” of weapons. Problem stems from having reasonable gun laws, allowing gun sales and having I-95 run through the state and directly to DC and NY. Instead of restricting the rights of law abiding citizens, the government should simply enforce penalties against straw purchases. Rather than do this, which would require some work, they go after the general population and dealers. I guess this gives them “good press”, at least among their liberal base.

[Seamus Mc Gillicuddy]

Now, if they can only put the pressure on the NJ legislature to do the same. Thanks to that scumbag Corzine, we can only purchase one handgun every 32 days, and not on Sundays, because the NJSP firearms division isn’t open to run the NICS check. This is a great step for Virginians, and I hope NJ takes notice.