Virginia Government is Now Attacking the First Amendment

@Louise21 Welcome to the community! Thank you for participating in the conversation. I also pay the NRA and GOA but it is a little more personnel when I reach out to my local elected officials and let them know how important our Constitutional rights are to individuals. I can gage their response myself.

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@Nancy8 I would caveat my :+1: with the best pick for the job including who is truly willing to uphold their oath of office. There are some current Rhinos in the Republican Party that are really hurting our country.

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@Michael345 Welcome aboard and thank you for joining in! My concern with the proposed legislation is whether another current law on the books covers “death threats”. That law should be applicable to every citizen in the Commonwealth. @MikeBKY isn’t that considered Assault?

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Just to be clear, I have issues with that law as well. Obscenity occupies an odd, and very difficult to rationalize, place in the jurisprudence surrounding the 1A. This law seems to go out of its way to try to extend itself beyond that oasis and into surrounding areas. The use of “immoral” is also troubling. I’m afraid some people like to write vague laws not because they are enforceable as such, rather because the threat of enforcement has a chilling effect. They would probably go out of their way to plea-out any potential case where litigating might result in a challenge to the constitutionality of this or that in it. We see this behavior in Massachusetts gun laws, which are rarely prosecuted as such. They seem more useful to the state as part of bully tactics to coerce plea deals and to inhibit constitutionally-protected actions by law-abiding citizens.

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States define what is an “assault” in their criminal o penal codes. In Kentucky, death threats would be Terroristic Threatening Third Degree, a Class A misdemeanor. An assault requires some physical injury.
Keep in mind, the changes to the VA statutes in question are not changing the law which does apply to all persons equally. It is only changing the venue, where the charges can be brought, for certain public officials. For those officials, the charge can be brought in the county where the crime was committed (which is the typical venue) or in Richmond, the capital city, because they are public state officials.

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Sorry, I was under the impression that “Assault” was making a threat of violence and “Battery” was carrying it out.

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That depends on how the law is defined by the state. What you say is true of common law crimes and torts where assault is the threat of unwanted touching and battery an unwanted touching. I took a quick look at VA law and they define assault and assault and battery.

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I suspect they are hedging their bets that a county, which may be a 2A sanctuary, may decide not to prosecute someone that one of those (select few) officials wants prosecuted.

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It actually makes sense that a crime committed against a state official be prosecuted in the Capital. In Kentucky, any challenges to the Constitutionality of a law must be prosecuted in Franklin Circuit Court, in the capital city of Kentucky.

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Yep. I was just making the point that Northam isn’t the only politician to try this…it’s not a new thing.

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they could try remember what happen in the 30s in Europe to the 40s ended in 45 and what was found of exactly what is trying to be done here in the states. so far we have ways to end the problem thru legal means and if that does not work we use the old and tried way that always work A invite to a neck-tie party

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Why weren’t they stopped when they were taken the 2nd Amendment away ? Those are fighting word’s , now the 1st Amendment , you’ll know how those liberals are , they take one thing then a another ! Don’t wait any longer or you all will have nothing ! Our Constitution was made to live by , and it shall not be Infringed upon , by foreign or domestic enemies : IN GOD WE TRUST !

“IN BRASS WE TRUST” should be our new slogan.

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