So I spoke to my State Senator yesterday. It was… quite a roller coaster of a conversation. He had replied to an email I sent through one of the GOA mass emails. Ironically, i find sometimes the tone of GOA emails is very confrontational (which I don’t like), but the only times I’ve ever received a response have been through their emails. ¯\(ツ)/¯ Anyway, in the email he gave his cell number and said he wanted to hear from constituents. So… I called
It started out cordially enough, although after a few minutes he asked if I was a member of the VCDL. I said I was… and then he went on a mini tirade for several minutes about Philip Van Cleave and the “gunimals” incident with Sacha Baron Cohen. Then he side-barred into other VCDL members who come up with “impossible scenarios” as to why they need ARs and focused on one guy who had a scenario about a machete wielding invader who had his wife hostage. He circled back around to Van Cleave and said it’s hard to take anyone seriously who is a member of any group with someone with that blight on his record. IMO, he went really far overboard on the topic. Maybe I was the umpteenth VCDL member who’d called him that day, and he was tired of it. Regardless, I felt it was going south really fast. When he paused to take a breath, I pointed out that in politics no one can/should throw stones and reminded him of our Governor’s “racial incident”. That seemed to pump the brakes a bit, I continued I am calling as a constituent and not a representative of any organization. I like to think I took the high-road on that as my goal was not to get into a phone fight, but it was pretty hard to keep level. I figured, if he remembers this conversation, I’d rather he remember the reasonable guy than “just another wacko”. Things went pretty much back to normal-ish after that.
The rest of the conversation is summarized below. My memory isn’t the best, so these aren’t quotes per se, but rather paraphrasing the gist of the conversation. Please do not take them as direct quotes. It was about a 50min conversation altogether.
“Assault Weapons Ban”
He seemed to think that the ban was OK, as long as it didn’t immediately make people felons for mere possession. At different points he said that while he was under no illusion that this wasn’t an instant fix, it was time to start getting these weapons off the streets.
He mentioned he wasn’t super familiar with gun lingo (shocking) and didn’t know the proposed SB16 was super broad and banned pretty much everything. When I told him it would, he didn’t seem bothered by that.
He mentioned he doesn’t think anyone “needs” that (an AR). Ditto for the magazine ban as well.
He mentioned more than once that the bill was going to be negotiated through the normal course of the session, and he was sure it was over broad to give them a point to fall back to. My inference on that, is that they know this won’t fly so they are pushing it way out and then will fall back to the “standard” assault weapon ban with a grandfather clause like it is in other states with AWB.
Gun Owners
I got the distinct impression he didn’t think much of gun owners in general, like we are all kinda redneck old white men with fantasies of being in shootouts with their ARs and high-capacity mags. And he really doesn’t think much of VCDL members. I am male, but definitely not redneck, I ain’t that old, I’m a minority, I happen to vote lefty on many topics, and a shootout is not a fantasy, but a nightmare. So the stereotype disease is pretty rampant on both sides of the aisle as usual. Reminds me of this video.
Magazine Ban
On the magazine ban, he couldn’t think of any reason you might need more than 10rnds. I tried to point out that only affects law-abiding, but not criminals.
A mass shooter can bring a bag full of 10-rounders, but we only have what is in the gun. I pointed out that it was a fallacy that people can attack a mass shooter waiting for him to reload (jump out from hiding, cross a room and tackle before he reloads). He said that police have told him, thats their operating procedure is to wait for a reload to attack. He was very clear that police officers have told him that. I don’t directly know any officers, but i do know a couple friends of friends that are officers and I will be asking them when I see them if that is the case. I doubt it is policy, but I don’t have firm proof of that.
1 Gun a Month
He was extremely proud of the 1 gun a month law that used to be in effect here in VA. He said it was very effective. He said some percentage (I don’t recall the number) of guns confiscated in NY were originally from VA. I need to do a bit of research on this as it does sound vaguely familiar. I didn’t have any good rebuttal for this as far as stats, so I let him carry on.
What happens to your guns after you die
He was also extremely animated on this one for some reason. Basically, we can be very responsible gun owners, but when we die if there isn’t a clear directive in your will your firearms go into an estate sale. Since there is no background check for private sales, the estate can sell your guns to “lord knows who” without any background check. This one was so bizarre I really really didn’t have a good rebuttal. I did ask him how often it happens and he said it’s “all the time”. I suspect it is like the “gun show loophole”, but this is so obscure I’m not even sure how I would find stats on it one way or the other. He was very adamant about it though…
Tied into this he also pointed out too many people leave their guns unattended. He said 100 guns from richmond area (I didn’t catch the timeframe… 1mo? 1yr?) were reported stolen. That number seems kinda high, but I can’t discount it altogether. But it was another point to emphasize that “eventually all guns end up in the hands of criminals”.
Red Flag Laws
Another one he seemed very adamant on. He couldn’t fathom why anyone would object to this. Instead of taking the unconstitutional tack on this, I took a different route. I haven’t seen the VA version of it, but I said that in most other states after a RedFlag, the target is left without help. Someone will say a target is a danger to themselves or others, the judge signs off on it, and the police show up to take away guns. But then thats where the law stops. No where does it mandate that the person get help (they ARE a danger to society right?). If they were sad/suicidal/angry/homicidal now that you’ve taken their stuff by force they are likely even sadder/angrier and still have access to all other methods of suicide/homicide.
If we mandate that they are a danger shouldn’t we do something to actually solve the problem? He said that they would be given a list of resources that are available to use ( didn’t say it outloud, but I can imagine the police handing the person a business card with names of therapists #yolo). He said we can’t forcibly put them into a 3-day hold (the proper response to a danger to themselves/others IMO) because then they would definitely lose their right to firearms. Also, who would pay for these things, no one wants to pay for anything nowadays. I suggested some consideration for the target of a red flag.
I also brought up the cost. If someone is red-flagged, they don’t get a court-appointed attorney because no crime has been committed. The target will need to spend potentially thousands of dollars trying to get their firearms back or don’t fight it and lose whatever the value is (hundreds at least and thousands if it’s more than one). Who does that impact the most? Thats right the poor people in our state.
Other programs
We spent a few minutes talking about people programs. I brought up Operation Ceasefire in Boston (link, link) which was a proven (literally) effective solution to violent crime and specifically firearms usage among young adults in the Boston (inner city). They stopped running it in 2005 for some reason (money?) and violent crime/gun violence among youths immediately began to climb again. So I asked if any proposals to combat the people side of the problem were being proposed. He was in agreement that they do help and are effective, even maybe enthusiastically so… but also that no one wants to pay for them. He mentioned a few other programs and also that some work in some places, but won’t work in others. I think he was implying that it wouldn’t work here in VA ¯\(ツ)/¯
Constitutional
As the conversation was closing, he made it a point to emphasize that none of the bills they are proposing are unconstitutional. He brought up (not me) the pending court cases in California RE magazine bans and said they will see how that shakes out. Since it was closing out, and I wanted to end the conversation on a high note instead of an argument (lol, theres no way any of this is constitutional) I let it end there.
Final Take-Aways
As usual, these folks know next to nothing about firearms.
They seem to be pushing UBC and RedFlags the hardest, AWB less so.
They are 100% focused on taking guns, and not really focused on fixing the people problem because a) it’s expensive, and b) it’s hard. So at the end, just taking guns away from everyone is an easier solution to the problem.