Virginia Democrats push controversial gun control bills through Senate committee

Long lines filed outside the Virginia General Assembly and hundreds of NRA gun rights activists flooded the State Capitol on the same day that the state’s Democratic senators passed a number of gun control bills in a committee.

Every gun control bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, except the most controversial one. Democratic state Sen. Dick Saslaw’s proposed Senate Bill 16 prohibiting “any person from importing, selling, transferring, manufacturing, purchasing, possessing, or transporting an assault firearm” was struck from the docket early in the morning.