RICHMOND, Va. -- More than 100 people, many holding picket signs and pictures at the Virginia State Capitol on Saturday, urged Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to sign what they called "gun safety" legislation.
Freshmen Del. Mike Jones (D — 77th District) told the crowd stories of going to sleep hearing constant gunfire in his south Richmond district he represented while on city council.
A bill Jones authored that he said has bipartisan support would punish gun owners with glock switches.
"You've heard it mentioned already, an auto sear or a glock switch," Jones said. "And what that does is it keeps the trigger pin open so you can empty an entire clip with one pull."
Jones said HB22 makes the possession, transport and manufacturing of such switches illegal.
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Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor told the crowd that universal background checks should be "logical and so easy" for lawmakers to approve.
"Making sure someone with a violent history, ensuring that someone doesn't have a nefarious or dangerous reason for why they want a gun," Taylor said. "Why is that such a hard concept for our Republican legislatures to understand. It doesn't make sense and it makes much more sense to stop gun violence before it happens than comfort grieving relatives and leaving me and my office to punish the perpetrator."
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Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a grassroots gun-rights group, said Democrats should be more focused on passing legislation to "punish criminals."
"They don't want to punish these criminals, lock them up for 10 years, because they're counting on people like that doing more crime to provide another excuse to come after our guns," Van Cleave said. "I know that sounds harsh, but there is no other way to read somebody that wants to release criminals early from jail — or not put them in at all — and the same people are trying to take away our guns complaining about the crime."
Van Cleave blamed most crime on illegal gun users killing others with stolen weapons and not law-abiding, registered gun users.
"The truth is, everything that they're calling 'gun safety' are things that affect people like me that aren't criminals," Van Cleave said. "Virtually all the bills headed to the governor’s desk, none of them are aimed at actual criminals. They do things like make it harder for a person like me to get a gun, harder to get a concealed carry permit. And yet I'm amongst the millions in Virginia that are good people and don't do anything wrong."
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But Van Cleave said one thing he can support is punishing parents whose children gain access to unsecured weapons.
Democrats also have a bill, SB368, that addresses secured storage in hopes of ensuring every gun owners store their firearms safely.
Youngkin's spokesman Christian Martinez released statement:
"Virginia’s gun laws are already among the toughest in the nation and Governor Youngkin continues to pursue policies to hold criminals that commit crimes with guns accountable by strengthening penalties to effectively keep criminals off the streets and Virginians safe. The governor will review all legislation that comes to his desk."
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