Gov. Bob McDonnell speaks in Roanoke, Va. on Aug. 4, 2010.
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Gov. Bob McDonnell listened to input from victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shootings this weekend as he prepares to decide whether Virginians will be allowed to purchase more than one handgun in a month.
Families affected by the April 16, 2007, campus shootings spoke with McDonnell in hopes of stopping a bill that would repeal Virginia’s ban on purchasing more than one handgun per month through commercial sales. The repeal passed both houses of the General Assembly and would become law with McDonnell’s signature.
The ban was originally put in place in 1993 to curb Virginia’s role in gun trafficking.
Related: Staff editorial
Andrew Goddard, whose son Colin Goddard was injured in the shootings that left 32 people dead on Tech’s campus, said the repeal would be a step back for Virginia’s public safety laws.
“It’s a very bad idea, I think, to do away with the only piece of legislation we have that specifically targets gun-trafficking in a time when we’re almost back to the point we were when this bill was put in place,” he said.
Goddard, along with several other families that have been active in lobbying for increased gun control since the shootings, sent a letter to McDonnell asking to voice their opinion. McDonnell listened to their arguments Saturday and is expected to make a decision today. He has previously voiced an intention to approve the repeal as passed by the General Assembly.
Goddard pointed out a survey conducted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Christopher Newport University that found 66 percent of Virginians don’t want to repeal the one-handgun-per-month ban.
In a statement to the Collegiate Times, McDonnell’s office thanked the families for their concern but declined to comment on the bill.
"The governor appreciated hearing directly from the families on this issue. It was a straightforward and substantive discussion,” McDonnell press secretary Jeff Caldwell said in an e-mail. “His thoughts and prayers remain with them as they continue to deal with their tremendous loss. We will have further comment on the legislation at the appropriate time."
If McDonnell approves the repeal, Virginians would no longer be restricted to purchasing one handgun per month through commercial vendors. It is already possible to purchase multiple firearms per month through private sales — such as gun sale transactions or buying a firearm from a friend.
“Even if it’s not as effective as it could be — because there are ways around it — taking it away altogether isn’t going to make it any better,” Goddard said. “Anyone who has a legitimate reason for getting more than one handgun a month has ways to do that now.”
The repeal is one of many gun-related bills to come up in the General Assembly this year. The two bills related to college campuses — one that would allow professors to carry concealed weapons on campus and another that would have ended colleges’ power to ban firearms on campus — have not passed this session.
A version of this article appeared in the Feb 28 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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"4/16 victims oppose repeal of handgun law"
Maybe the following would be more appropriate.
"Some 4/16 victims oppose repeal of handgun law."
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And "some people" are murderous morons.
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"4/16 victims oppose repeal of handgun law"
Maybe the following would be more appropriate.
"Some 4/16 victims oppose repeal of handgun law."
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No, the following would be more appropriate:
66 percent of Virginians don't want to repeal the one-handgun-per month ban.
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If 99% of Virginians wanted to kill the other 1%, it wouldn't make it right. That's why we are not a democracy, but a representative, constitutional republic. The law is immoral, illegal, and in direct violation of the U.S. and Virginian constitution. It is a common logical and argumentative fallacy to claim that majority opinion is equivalent to objective reality.
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No, the following would be more appropriate:
"66 percent of Virginians don't want to repeal the one-handgun-per-month ban.
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Newsflash: This just in: criminals do not follow the law(by virtue of being a criminal). I would be ok with limiting the number of firearms, so long as we limit the ones criminals have.
Oh, wait, it is already illegal for criminals to have guns?
We have two options: 1) Ban all the guns, so that only criminals have guns, or 2) streamline the process for law abiding citizens to exercise all of their rights set forth by the Constitution. Which is the better option? Protect yourself or rely on the government for everything? The last time I checked, police aren't on every street 24/7.
When seconds count, police are only minutes away.
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One... your child... will use your gun... to kill another child.
God help it if it's one of mine.
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lock your guns up. then it won't be your child. You can't go around worry about what ifs. Keep your child from taking a gun to school. That's the best you can do.
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lock your guns up
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If he signs this bill, then Virginia Republicans are truly the Party of murder as well as rape.
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Yeah ok. Then i guess the virginia democrats are the party of sodomy and fetal genocide. Just like all the other recent restorations of gun rights in virginia, for example the restaurant ban repeal, the repeal of this law will have absolutely no impact on the crime rate. But, once again the anti-gun crowd wails about "blood in the streets," and it never happens.
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Actually, for years, republicans and gun owners have been encouraging women to carry firearms to defend themselves from rape and murder. I believe there are actually some women only CCW classes being.
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I like how the Brady Campaign claims to not be anti-gun, but just anti-violence. When we had the VCDL protest, Goddard even said to me that he was not anti-gun, and only wanted to curb gun violence. If that was the case, why in the hell would these loons concentrate on blocking the repeal law that is both statistically proven, based on data from other states, and logically proven to have little to no impact on handgun violence? These people are just rabidly anti-gun, and their ignorance has turned them delusional. I even offered to help Goddard work on strengthening the current background check system, ensuring criminals and crazy people were on the no-buy list, and to toughen up laws punishing gun violence by reducing plea deals for violent offenders(which are *actual* problems that would have an *actual* solution). Instead, they want to focus on this bullsh*t. I have no words for this lunacy.
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I like how the Brady Campaign claims to not be anti-gun, but just anti-violence. When we had the VCDL protest, Goddard even said to me that he was not anti-gun, and only wanted to curb gun violence. If that was the case, why in the hell would these loons concentrate on blocking the repeal law that is both statistically proven, based on data from other states, and logically proven to have little to no impact on handgun violence? These people are just rabidly anti-gun, and their ignorance has turned them delusional. I even offered to help Goddard work on strengthening the current background check system, ensuring criminals and crazy people were on the no-buy list, and to toughen up laws punishing gun violence by reducing plea deals for violent offenders(which are *actual* problems that would have an *actual* solution). Instead, they want to focus on this bullsh*t. I have no words for this lunacy.
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how does limiting the number of hand guns prevent gun violence? people only have two hands so its highly unlikely if you bought a weapon for the sole purpose of comitting a crime you would use more than two anyways. even then, you're not limited in the number of magazines you can buy for one gun or the amount of ammunition. it makes more since to have mags and ammo for one gun than two anyways. listen, it's legal in virginia to open carry but only a very small percentage of the population actually do so. I think the obsessive fear of repealing this gun law is akin to thinking that if we allowed people to open carry we would have people walking around with openly carried guns and scareing people. regardless of whether or not this is a law is irrelevent. it serves no useful purpose one way or the other.
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Again, gun control advocates prove their goal is not to increase safety, but to inconvenience gun owners with petty, useless restrictions. I applaud the Virginia legislature for taking steps to reduce the needlessly complicated and restrictive patchwork of gun laws that is currently in place. This regulation, like most regulations, has no effect on the ability of criminals to acquire guns. Criminals will always find ways around restrictions, while law-abiding citizens will be needlessly inconvenienced by them.
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It has been signed. If we want to do something about violence and guns, lets impose tighter restrictions on the BATFE, since the let 2000 guns into criminals hands from 2010-2011 during Operation Fast and Furious. To date, less than 700 of these guns have been recovered. Most of these guns left the US and were taken to Mexico.
From Wikipedia:
By June 2010, suspects had purchased 1,608 firearms at a cost of over US$1 million at Phoenix-area gun shops. At that time, the ATF was also aware of 179 of those weapons being found at crime scenes in Mexico, and 130 in the US.
Altogether, 2,020 firearms were bought by straw purchasers during Fast and Furious.[3] These included AK-47 variants, Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles, .38 caliber revolvers, and FN Five-sevens.[36] As of October 20, 2011, 389 had been recovered in the US and 276 had been recovered in Mexico. The rest remained on the streets, unaccounted for
In April 2011, a large cache of weapons, including 40 traced to Fast and Furious, was found in the home of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a prominent Sinaloa Cartel member, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The stash included an anti-aircraft machine gun and a grenade launcher. Torres Marrufo was indicted, but as of October 2011 law enforcement has been unable to locate and arrest him.
Some of these guns have even been used to kill Federal Agents
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First of all, this law was no party at all to the horrible events of 4/16. So the title: "4/16 victims oppose repeal of handgun law" is a misinformed or intentional attempt emotional appeal. The facts are that this law has done nothing to curb gun violence because it CANNOT target the people who use guns for violence. All they do is restrict people who already follow the law from buying guns. Do you know who can't buy guns through legal channels anyway? People with a criminal background. So the ONLY ones this will ever affect are those who have no criminal background. The governor and state legislature were 100% right in repealing this archaic law.
If you want to curb gun violence, increase accuracy of criminal and mental background checks or increase the penalty for CRIMINAL possession of a firearm.
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The Gunman who shot Officer Crouse on our campus had purchased his weapon legally in January of 2011. It is irresponsible and illogical to say the only people who will be affected by this law are those with no criminal background. If Ross Truett Ashley, a person who could legally buy a firearm and did, not had easy access to a gun, perhaps Officer Crouse would still be alive.
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Agreed. The answer is not more guns. At some point our society must admit that access to handguns must be restricted. The argument that people who commit crimes involving firearms were criminals to begin with is false. Yet it's taken as gospel in these blogs.
How many people who conceal carry have had to draw their weapon as a deterrent or even engage in a firefight?
How many more Chadron HS like shootings do we have to endure in this country? Human nature in some people, not all, is destructive and evil and when allowed access to firearms the result may be deadly. People become unbalanced and if they have access to firearms, the result may be deadly. Some people are just careless with the storage and security of their weapons, and the result may be deadly. And none of these people may be criminals. But if access to guns wasn't as easy as it is now, a lot of innocent people would not be dying.
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Hindsight is 20/20. You can't predict the future. In this case, yes the murderer had no criminal background and passed all requirements to buy a gun. However if we ban guns, he could access hundreds of other items that could potentially be used for deadly weapons. He could make a bomb. He could get a knife. He could run people over in a car. The scenarios are endless. At the end of the day, bad people will find a way to do harm regardless of the laws on the books. We can't predict the future and stop them. We have a 2nd amendment for a reason...to protect ourselves and our freedoms and with that RIGHT comes responsibility. Because some people misuses that right does not mean all citizens should have their rights taken away. Gun violence in this country is not the result of access to guns, but the circumstances surrounding an individual and why they choose to do harm. Mental instability, drugs, gangs, poverty, bad parenting, and so on. Banning guns is a knee jerk reaction that will not stop people from WANTING to harm others. Mankind will always have individuals that want to harm others and that will not change regardless of any laws on the books. So we must accept that risk and take measures to protect ourselves and focus our efforts on helping to fix problems in our society as a whole like gangs and drugs. We need better research, education, and identification of mental illness.
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Back before guns, Virginia was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.
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Tony, you make good points. But this issue is not about banning guns as you say it is. It doesn't advocate that all citizens should have their gun rights taken away either.
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