Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is reportedly “fuming” this week after the state failed to get a single justice on the Supreme Court to support her after she violated the state constitution in her attempted gerrymandering of the state. However, Spanberger may have just guaranteed another trip to the Supreme Court when she said the quiet part out loud about the new state gun ban.
After the Democrats took power recently, they went on a frenzy of tax and liberal legislative measures. The sharp move to the far left is out of sync with a purple state that remains roughly evenly divided. While Spanberger (who ran on being a moderate) has pushed forward many of these measures, she sought to moderate one bill banning so-called “assault firearms.”
Spanberger released a statement that:
“I am signing this bill into law because firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets. We are taking this step to protect families and support the law enforcement officers who work every day to keep our communities safe. While the General Assembly chose not to adopt my amendment that specifically carves out certain firearms frequently used for hunting, I will work with the patrons to clarify this language.” (emphasis added)
The governor’s acknowledgment that the law covers common hunting models will likely be cited in Second Amendment challenges. If the law is not amended, she could prove the main witness against her own signed legislation.
Even with such an amendment, the bill is problematic. I have previously written about my skepticism over bans on AR-15s and other so-called “assault weapons,” though some courts have upheld such bans.
We have a Second Amendment protection of gun ownership, with over 490 million guns in private hands, as of 2022. In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, recognizing the Second Amendment as encompassing an individual right to bear arms. The Supreme Court further strengthened the right in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.
The AR-15 is the most popular gun in America and the number of these guns in private hands is continuing to rise rapidly, with one AR-15 purchased in every five new firearms sales. There are an estimated 32 million currently in private hands in the United States, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
These AR-15s clearly are not being purchased for armored deer. Many are purchased for personal and home protection; it is also popular for target shooting and hunting. Many gun owners like the AR-15 because it is modular; depending on the model, you can swap out barrels, bolts and high-capacity magazines, or add a variety of accessories. While it does more damage than a typical handgun, it is not the most powerful gun sold in terms of caliber; many guns have equal or greater caliber.
Again, lower courts are divided on both the bans on semiautomatic weapons and the magazine bans. Eventually, the Supreme Court will have to resolve the question. If the Virginia law remains unchanged, Spanberger may find that her signing statement will feature greatly in the appeal.
Molon Labe
FAFO for sure.
-g
Just to clarify: caliber is not the only determinant of lethality. Muzzle velocity is also important. Hydrodynamic shock causes significant damage to tissue in areas remote from the wound track.
Your comment is factually accurate but it misses the point. Only 3% of all homicides are committed with ALL types of rifles. AR type rifles are a small percentage of that 3%.
100% of homicides commited by humans tho
VA and the rest of the nation can be grateful that Spanberger is limited to one term. She provides a lesson that all voters should remember. There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat running for public office anymore. They will claim to be moderate but once in office they will waste no time demonstrating their allegiance to the far left. The party has been moving in this direction for at least the last 2 decades, carefully infiltrating the institutions of influence and power and dismantling the guardrails that support the balance of power between the 3 branches of government. Their openness about their plans reflects their confidence in achieving it. We cannot let that happen.
Like James Carville said,
“And the only way to fight this is don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it. Just okay.”
It seems like it’s the same story from Romney to Spanberger: Say whatever is necessary and pretend to be what the voters say they want, and once you get into office do what TPTB tell you.
-g
Here’s hoping the dems follow carville right off the cliff they can’t see in front of them despite being warned.
Spanberger’s failures are the new hallmark of the democrats collapse.
Prof. Turley,
All rifles are more powerful than hand guns
As a rule the longer the barrel the higher the velocity of the projectile.
From Physics – Force equals mass time acceleration the faster a projectile is traveling at the point of impact the more it must decelerate as it passes through whatever it strikes the more energy will be transfered.
A larger caliber projectile usually has more mass and therefore also transfers more energy.
Regardless potential damage is NOT a legitimate criteria for banning a weapon.
The 2nd and 14th amendments assure many firearms rights – including sport, hunting and self defense.
Hunting and self defence REUIRE doing damage
VA can not say – you have the right to a firearm – but not one that will be unlikely to enable you to defend yourself.
Spot on.
“All rifles are more powerful than hand guns.” –John Say
Are you kidding me? Surely you can’t suggest that my little .22LR Marlin “Mountie” lever action rifle is “more powerful” than, say, my Smith & Wesson Model 686, chambered in .357 Magnum?
Perhaps you meant to say “for any rifle and handgun chambered in the same caliber, the rifle will be the more powerful” ?
I think that that is the more accurate statement.
Bold statements John
explore linear momentum and Impact further and consider caliber or charge size, friction loss, and distance. I would believe that Muzzle velocity, distance to target and mass of the projectile are the defining parameters. Rifle versus pistol Impact force for caliber per caliber are going to be governed by distance to the target (accuracy) and momentum losses as both shoot the same cartridge, say a .45 ACP or .22 mag. Wouldn’t that make both projectiles equal at pin and would not a longer barrel impose additional friction loss on the projectile of a rifle versus a pistol as the explosive force is equal? ? I
believe barrel length and number of twists would more attribute to accuracy. Just my thought…
L=mV
The second amendment protects the right to hunt – but that is the LEAST significant point to the 2nd amendment
It also protects the right to self defense, to shooting as a sport, and to arms for the purpose of defending against the government.
Barring weapons that inflict the most damage is NOT a legitimate legislative purpose.
The purpose of guns is to inflict damage – they are deadly force – they are NOT used to wound, but to kill.
VA can not seek to bar guns that can kill – that would vitiate the purpose of the 2nd amendment.
People buy guns for self defence specifically for their stopping power – they are looking for the maximum instant damage.
One of the worst outcomes for using a firearm in self defense is to injure your assailant without disabling them.
That likely results in your gun being taken and you being more helpless than before.
Aside from the 2nd amendment the 14th amendment was specifically passed to grant freed blacks slaves the power to defend themselves against whites in the south.
The right to be able to use a powerful weapon to defend yourself – possibly even from a dangerous mob is enshrined in the 14th amendment.
VA is just being stupid.
If this law manages to get to SCOTUS is will be summarily tossed.
Sorry, John.
There is no right to hunt.
Game birds and animals are owned by the state
Hunting is a privilege, bestowed by the state on people who meet the prerequisites and pledge to follow its rules. And pay its often substantial fees.
“The right to be able to use a powerful weapon to defend yourself – possibly even from a dangerous mob is enshrined in the 14th amendment.”
No. And the Supreme Court ruled to the contrary, in Cruikshank (1876).
“The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government.”
The rights in the Bill of Rights were indeed incorporated against the states, via the 14th amendment, but it was a slow process, taking decades, not finished until McDonald incorporated the Second Amendment right.
100,000/yr die of drugs democrats push!
1,000’s die at the handsd of illegals democrats import
1,000’s die at the hands of blacks they raise to be criminals. 80% of blacks kids are not raised by 2 parents in failed public union schools!
Democrats are FASCISTS!
voting Democrat, means you hate America.
Spanberger is nothing but a STOOGE for the Left Wing Radical DEMS. A PUPPET. GERRYMANDERING, Restrictions on the Right of the Legal Americans under the Second Amendment, Increasing Taxes & More Taxes, Home for ILLEGALS and Migrant Criminals, will drive voters, no matter how many Questionable Votes produced out of Fairfax County, to throw the DEMS out of State and Federal Power and perhaps Impeach Spanberger & Associates. One by one Counties, Towns Sheriffs say NO to Spanberger & Associates they will not enforce the latest attempt to restrict the 2nd Amendments of Virginians
Wouldn’t it be more effective if Spamberger and Virginia Dems passed laws that made it illegal to commit a crime with a firearm and especially illegal to commit murder with a gun?
Those laws already exist. I beleive every state has a firearms enhancement – an additional manditory consecutive sentence if you are convicted of a violent crime using a firearm.
SCOTUS has ruled that the crime must be violent or involve the threat of violence.
Additionall I beleive all states have persons not to possess laws.
If you have committed crimes in the past you are typically permanently barred from owning or even just posessing a firearm.
That is an additional crime.
Many states have laws that temporarily prohibit you from possession of firearms under a wide variety of circumstances.
If you have certain mental disorders.
If you have an outstanding protection from abuse order.
SCOTUS has found pretty much all restrictions on the possession of firearms based on the state of the person possessing them to be legitmate.
As an example if the police are called to your house to do a health check, and decide to send you for a mental health evaluation,
all against your will, they can also confiscate your firearms – even if you are found mentally healthy
It seems that Abigail has a real dumb ass for an Attorney General. The warning signs were there but she ignored them.
Ralph Northam applauds Abigail Spanberger’s actions!!! And Ralph looks forward to soon passing off his label/crown of being the most incompetent governor in the history of Virginia!
So he favors killing newborns as long as it’s not with a gun?
ol’ doc Ralph is not only in favor of such, he was willing to say it out-loud long before it was fashionable!. Look up his interview on youtube.
It seems odd that the term “shall not be infringed” has a different meaning depending on the Court. Seems pretty unambiguous to me.
But…but…but…movies and TV show that the AR is probably the most devastating firearm ever created. You get hit by one of its “bullits” and you go flying backwards at least twenty (20) feet!
***sarcasm off***
Noone
I am tired of the constant debate over Ar15s, magazine capacity, bullet types or anything else designed to neuter the Second Amendment. Done with it. Deaf to the arguments. I know the motivation. I’ve heard the rhetoric. I recognize the constant lying when it is presented as fact….as Truth. Most importantly, I know the intention of Second Amendment opponents. I’ve seen examples throughout history. Tyrants throughout history have eliminated firearm ownership in order to emasculate their populations. Hitler, Mao, Stalin and others. Bogus gun laws in the Old South designed to prevent firearm freedom for blacks. Even today in Canada, Australia, Great Britain and the EU. Places where governments are riding roughshod over the civil liberties of citizens. Upon investigation, the “facts” cited by those so vehemently opposed to “assault rifles” fail miserably. The “horrific power” of the AR15 pales in comparison to the most common hunting rifles. Their design is a matter of ergonomics. Nothing else. Their mechanism is based on designs going back well over one hundred years! We’ve heard it all. So, keep up the drumbeat. You create more opponents to your position with every public comment, every tweet and every hysterical pronouncement. Every time you threaten to ban guns, of any kind, sales skyrocket. And, understand this very clearly. We are arming ourselves, not for crime, but to protect ourselves and our culture from those pseudo intellectual enlightened egoistic politicians who seem determined to strip away the last vestiges of our Constitutional rights. Keep it up. The banks of the Rubicon are becoming crowded. Too much more and we cross, never to retreat.
All these Blue Politicians are figuring out how to continuously end-run SCOTUS on any ruling they don’t like – just keep passing variants of the laws that failed because it takes inordinate amounts of time to wind through the gerrymandered court systems in our country. Leftist District Court Judges uphold the law, then the somewhat centrist Appeals Courts strike it down but may leave the strike down in place as it winds up at SCOTUS maybe! During the interim – mission accomplished with bans, registrations of deplorables buying the guns, ammo, and accessories, etc. All good intel for the State to further target the ‘domestic terrorists’ with ‘monitoring’ and other intrusive compliance methods! Do this over and over and the State eventually wins no matter what! What Second Amendment Right????
While Democrats now speak openly about the coming apocalypse of a new Socialist Order in America, this rhetoric has provoked fear in many. Yet they also fear the consequences of becoming too kinetic in pursuing it. Among those fears are the 32 million AR-15s, backlash at the ballot box, over-taxation, and, now, it seems, their own tool: redistricting.
fascists democrats fear nothing. That is like saying brownshirts had fear in 1930’s
Spanaberger and the criminals that tell her what to think, yeah, but no one makes the argument for 2A more clear than marc elias
“…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Which part of that clear statement do these fornicating @$$h013 politicians fail to grasp?
If Virginia survives her term of office one can only hope that this charlatan has set the sun of her political career.
Someday the D’s will realize that this is not the Warren or Burger Court, and that their efforts to rewrite the Constitution for sake of a “present convenience” will not work with this Court (with apologies to Edmund Burke).