ATTENTION Virginia residents:
1. URGENT VCDL Legislative Action Item
Two gun-rights bills and two gun-control bills are going to be heard THIS Thursday, January 16, at 4pm in the House Public Safety Firearms subcommittee held in House North Subcommittee Room 200.
Seven gun-control bills are going to be heard in the House Public Safety committee THIS Friday, January 17, at 8 am in House Committee Room A 008.
Click
here to send a prewritten email to your Delegate to OPPOSE those nine gun-control bills. And click
here to send a prewritten email to your Delegate to SUPPORT the two gun-rights bills.
If you can attend either of the meetings in person, that is a plus.
If you can’t attend in person, you can attend the Firearms subcommittee electronically by clicking
here. At that link you can sign up to speak virtually and/or you can leave a written public comment on the four bills being heard in the subcommittee. Your written comments stay with the bills as they move through the General Assembly.
NOTE: The VCDL 2025 Legislative Tracking System is now up and running!
https://vcdl-lis.org
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These are the nine gun-control bills with a description and notes for each bill:
HB 1597, Delegate Feggans, requires all firearms in a home, that are not being carried on or about a person, to be unloaded and placed in a locked container if there is a minor in the home or if there is a prohibited person in the home. A gun may only be stored loaded if it is in a biometric safe. Guns left in a vehicle must be secured in a locked box or container that is not visible from outside the vehicle, must be affixed to the vehicle, and the vehicle must be locked, too. Glove boxes and consoles cannot be used unless specifically designed for gun storage. Gun dealers must post signage about the law and there is also a provision to educate the public on firearm storage.
Biometric safes are more expensive than non-biometric safes. Biometric safes can be unreliable when being used under stress and require batteries to work. Why are biometric safes the only option for storing a loaded firearm? This bill punishes the victim if their gun is stolen from a vehicle and the firearm is not stored per the requirements of this bill. Not all lock boxes have a way to be affixed to a vehicle. Not all lock boxes can be easily hidden. If a person is a passenger in someone else’s vehicle and must leave their gun in the car to use a restroom at a Virginia rest area, for example, they would have no way to comply with this bill.
HB 1607, Delegate Helmer, prohibits the sale, possession, transfer, and transport of an “assault firearm” made on or after July 1, 2025. It also prohibits sale, possession, transfer, and transport of an “assault firearm” to anyone under the age of 21. Magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and were made on or after July 1, 2025, are prohibited.
The U.S. Supreme Court has said in both DC v Heller, and recently The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen, that any firearm “in common use” is protected by the Second Amendment. The guns and magazines targeted by this bill are among the most common guns and magazines in the United States, making this bill unconstitutional.
HB 1608, Delegate Helmer, allows one of the most highly regulated industries, the firearms industry, to be sued civilly for a variety of already illegal actions. It also holds the manufacturers and sellers of even the most benign of firearm accessories, like a butt stock or a gun case, liable to a civil lawsuit if it doesn’t “properly” protect that item from theft or misuse by a criminal.
How could a firearm accessory seller reasonably know if they were selling a gun sling to a prohibited person? This bill is designed to have a chilling effect on all aspects of the firearms industry. At a time when the federal government is pulling FFL licenses for even the tiniest and most benign of paperwork mistakes, this bill is just piling on with more unreasonable ways to destroy the firearm industry.
HB 1622, Delegate Laufer, creates a $500 civil penalty
and subjects a vehicle to towing if a person leaves a visible handgun in an unattended vehicle.
The car owner should not be at fault even if a criminal opens an unlocked car door to steal a firearm. It is the criminal who is solely to blame. This bill would put a handgun in the possession of, and under the control of, a tow truck company! Punish criminals and stop harassing good people.
HB 1660, Delegate Jones, redefines a “trigger activator” as a “conversion kit, tool, accessory, or device” that alters the rate of fire of a semi-automatic firearm to “mimic automatic weapon fire or used to increase the rate of fire to a faster rate than that possible for a person to fire such semi-automatic firearm unassisted…”
The terms in this bill are so vague as to be meaningless. At what exact point does a firearm “mimic automatic weapon fire,” considering that different automatic firearms have different rates of fire? And how does someone determine what the rate of fire is for a person shooting a firearm unassisted? There are professional shooters, such as world champion Jerry Miculek, who can shoot a firearm without assisting devices at eye-popping speeds. Unadulterated semi-automatic firearms can be “bump fired” by simply holding them the right way.
HB 1797, Delegate Helmer, severely restricts concealed handgun permit recognition with other states. Currently, Virginia honors permits from all other states, which, in turn, allows Virginians to be able to carry in most of those states.
Permit holders from other states have been peacefully carrying in Virginia for years. This bill is an unjust and demeaning slap in the face to law-abiding Virginia gun owners, as it will reduce the number of states where a Virginia permit holder can carry a handgun for self-defense. It will also discourage gun owners outside of Virginia from visiting the Commonwealth, effecting the state’s economy. This bill is a solution in search of a problem.
HB 1869, Delegate McClure, makes battery in a “dating relationship” a misdemeanor and takes away the right to purchase, possess, or transport a firearm for three years
. This amounts to a lifetime ban on firearms federally since it does not also take away, and restore, all civil rights. Misdemeanors should never take away a civil right. This will also not stand up to court challenge under the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision as there was no history or tradition of taking away a person’s right to keep and bear arms over misdemeanor battery of anyone.
HB 1876, Delegate Callsen, restricts firearms at public institutions of higher education by requiring such firearms be part of an authorized program or activity inside a building.
A solution in search of a problem. Higher education students are adults and have a right to self-defense.
HB 1960, Delegate Bennett-Parker, requires a person with a protective order against them or a person with a domestic violence conviction to surrender, sell, or turn their guns over to someone 21-years-old or older and someone who does not live with them. It requires the person to be advised that if a police officer believes they have not turned over all their guns, that the officer can get a search warrant to look for any such guns.
There are multiple problems with the bill as written. If a husband and wife co-own a shotgun for home defense, for example, and the husband gets a protective order issued against him, the wife would no longer have access to that co-owned shotgun. That punishes the wife and needlessly endangers her life. There is also the question of not allowing a person 18 to 20-years-old to retain the guns. A person in that age range can legally possess rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Young adults should be able to hold the guns.
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These are the two gun-rights bills:
HB 1559, Delegate Williams, clarifies that a person who is renewing a concealed handgun permit does not have to provide any proof of training or demonstration of competence.
This corrects a problem with some judges misreading the law.
HB 1569, Delegate Wiley, lowers the maximum concealed handgun permit fee from $50 to $25, by lowering the maximum local law-enforcement can charge for the background check from $35 to $10.
Originally the maximum permit fee was set at $50, which included approximately $25 to go to the FBI for fingerprinting applicants. In 2012 the General Assembly repealed the fingerprinting requirement, but never got around to reducing the maximum permit fee accordingly. Clearly this change is long overdue. Background checks are now quick and easy for most applicants, causing many sheriffs in Virginia to do the background checks for free. $10 should more than cover the costs of the background check.
2. Help needed: Salem gun show THIS WEEKEND!
We need member-volunteers to staff the VCDL tables at the C&E Salem Gun Show January 18 - 19, 2025 held at the Salem Civic Center. Admission and parking are free. Many vendors may offer discounts to VCDL volunteers. VCDL will again offer FREE ADMISSION to those joining or renewing memberships at this event. Five volunteers per shift are needed to help:
Saturday the 18th,
8:00 AM to 12:30 PM
12:30 PM to 5:00 PM
Sunday the 19th,
9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Mark the dates on your calendars and contact Nat Weigle, Salem Gun Show Coordinator at
[email protected] and sign up to join us. We have experienced cases where responses to volunteers have been sent to their spam/junk/quarantine folders. Please check these folders if you are expecting a response but have yet to see one. We certainly reply to all volunteers, as without your help we are powerless.
Please Note: Positions will be filled first-come-first-served. All volunteers working at a gun show or event must be current members of VCDL.
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