For once, common sense has won the day in Virginia politics. And yes, even a few Democrats deserve credit this time.
On Monday, the Mike Bloomberg and Gov. Ralph Northam-backed “assault weapons” ban that passed the Virginia House of Delegates died in the state Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill would have outlawed future sales of so-called assault weapons, including popular firearm models such as the AR-15, and forced gun owners to turn in certain magazines or face criminal penalties, even jail time. It was a draconian measure that would have cracked down on the rights of law-abiding Virginians without meaningfully improving public safety in any way.
STORY: https://t.co/Ameku6Zc8U
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 17, 2020
The vote failed after four moderate Democrats broke with their party to kill the bill. Bravo to these four brave souls, who will have undoubtedly earned the ire of the anti-gun lobby, but ultimately, did the right thing. After all, there was no compelling evidence supporting this proposal to begin with.
As I previously wrote:
Remember: We’ve already tried the whole ‘ban assault weapons’ fearmongering and policy fiasco, under President Bill Clinton. The Democrat president signed such a ban into law in 1994, and it expired in 2004. Experts almost universally agree that it was not effective and did not reduce gun violence.
For example, one analyst concluded, ‘The ban did not appear to affect gun crime during the time it was in effect.’ Additionally, the RAND Corporation conducted a comprehensive review and found ‘no qualifying studies showing that bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines decreased any of the eight outcomes we investigated.’ And even the left-wing website Vox admitted that an assault weapons ban is ‘one of the gun control measures with the least supportive evidence behind it.’
It appears the grassroots effort to oppose the Virginia Democrats’ gun control agenda have paid off. The entire state is better off as a result.
