Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday he is hopeful the General Assembly will overcome its affection for firearms and adopt changes to the commonwealth’s gun and ammunition laws in response to the April 16 murders at Virginia Tech.
Kaine would not discuss specific changes he would like to see or legislation he thinks would be palatable to the General Assembly. Though Northern Virginia legislators tend to support stricter gun-control bills, lawmakers from more rural and conservative regions routinely defeat such legislation.
A bill to ban guns in libraries, for example, was quickly killed in a House of Delegates committee this year.
Kaine already has issued an executive order requiring that law enforcement receive additional mental health information about individuals applying for a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Beyond that, he said Tuesday, he will wait for recommendations from a panel investigating the massacre in which a gunman killed 32 students and faculty members before committing suicide.
“The recommendations should be ready in August, and that will give legislators plenty of time to look at the suggestions and talk to members of the commission,” the governor told reporters. “We don’t go back into legislative session until January, so there’s a lot of time to work on this. I think we can get something done.”
In general, Kaine said, he is troubled that Virginia law allows any individual to stockpile ammunition with no way for authorities to monitor the cache. Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman, began his rampage with 377 rounds of ammunition, according to police. He also said college presidents and police chiefs have told him that allowing students and faculty to carry weapons on campus “would be a disaster.”
State law allows institutions of higher learning to decide whether to allow firearms on campus and inside buildings. A pro-gun student group has recently formed at George Mason University to advocate for a change in school policy and state law.
“We need the legislature to step in and tell the institutions of higher learning they have to allow law-abiding, licensed citizens to carry their weapons,” said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League.
The governor was in Manassas to attend a ceremony at the site of the new state crime laboratory.
