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January 04, 2021
By Mark Chesnut
After an all-hands-on-deck push of gun control measures last year that resulted in numerous new restrictions on Virginia residents, Democrat lawmakers in the Commonwealth seem to be backing away from reintroducing or pursuing such legislation in 2021?
“Why?” you might ask.
Simple: Because it’s an election year.
In fact, anti-gun Gov. Ralph Northam, who has never seen a gun restriction he didn’t like, isn’t continuing to push his long anti-gun wish list in order to protect Democrat politicians from having to remind their constituents about their support for sweeping restrictions.
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“It was a campaign promise that a lot of us ran on,” Northam told 8News when asked if he would push the failed assault weapons ban that Democrats strongly favored last year. “That one bill on assault weapons didn’t move forward, but six other pieces of legislation did and I think because of that Virginia is a safer state. But I’ll leave that up to the discretion of the legislation and whatever they do I’ll be supportive of.”
Of course, Virginia is not a safer state because of those new anti-gun laws. And the fact that pro-gun advocated were able to stop the assault weapons ban—at least temporarily—was one positive occurrence in the Commonwealth in 2020.
Still, hearing legislatures pretend to not really support such a bill in 2021 is an insult to law-abiding citizens whose rights are at stake. While Democrat Delegate Mark Levine says he won’t push the bill forward this year because it’s a shortened and largely virtual session, it’s easy to see he’s protecting his anti-gun cronies from voters.
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“Most of the session will be devoted to things that are less controversial,” Levine told WRIC-TV. “That doesn’t mean I’ve given up fighting for this cause. The goal is to stop making it really easy to commit mass murder.”
While politicians who change their priorities every other year just to stay in office are an excellent reason why so many gun owners have become cynical about their supposed “life-saving” proposals, the fact that they continue to be reelected doesn’t speak highly for voters’ memories.
Virginia gun owners should learn where their representatives stand on the issues and how they have voted on critical legislation in the past, then support them or work to replace them with someone who respects their rights. Hoping things will somehow get better with an anti-gun majority in the General Assembly is a sure strategy for continued loss of essential liberties.
Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for the past 20 years.
