Virginia

The state of Virginia is considering legislation requiring 30 days prior police notice for "gun shows", defined to include any "gathering or exhibition" of two or more persons, in which one of the purposes is to exchange, sell, or trade firearms; the same bill also includes a requirement to provide the police a list of vendors and exhibitors in the show.

I find myself wondering if the author of the legislation intended to include any private sale in the definition of "gun show", and am forced to conclude that, probably, the answer is yes. 

Those of you in Virginia should probably be calling your legislators about now.

Those of us watching from the sidelines, however, can ponder this extra amusing piece of gristle in the legislative sausage:

The provisions of this section shall not apply to firearms shows held in any town with a population of not less than 1,995 and not more than 2,010, according to the 1990 United States census.

That has GOT to have been written to exclude a specific town from the bill.  Probably the legislator's hometown or some such favoritism, written to avoid being technically "favoritism" because it applies to all towns of the right size... and just happens to define the "right size" narrowly enough to exclude all but one.

UPDATE: Reader Standard Mischief has identified the legislator responsible for this particular bit of gristle, and is trying to identify it specifically.  Check the comments for more.

UPDATE: Gotcha!

"The town's primary claim to fame is its Hillsville Flea Market (more properly known as the VFW Flea Market & Gun Show), which has been called the largest American flea market to the east of the Mississippi River. It is held twice a year; in 2004, the Labor Day show attracted 650,000 visitors, and the Memorial Day show attracted 250,000 visitors. Vendors and customers have arrived from as far away as Germany, Africa, and South Korea."

Well isn't that interesting.  "Let's regulate all the gun shows -- except this one."

Claire Wolfe has an account of BATFE abuse that will shock and horrify you.  It seems the BATFE agents set up outside a Virginia gun show and sent investigators to the homes of everyone buying a gun.  The investigators filled out surveys from the people they found there ("Hello, ma'am.  Did you know your husband was buying a gun at a gun show today?") or their neighbors ("Hello.  Did you know your neighbor is buying a gun at a gun show today?  How do you feel about that?"). 

If this checks out, it's completely outrageous, and I expect large civil judgements to be paid.

UPDATE: There's a thread on The High Road and American Minutemen about this incident.  The latter has a supposedly (apply the internet rule) first-person account of the incident.

UPDATE: CyberCast News Service has a story about the situation up.  It's a good summary of what we know so far, and includes some new information and research.

The authors of this article appear to have learned from the shall-issue transition in Virginia.  As is usual, changing from a may-issue to a shall-issue concealed-handgun permit system did not cause blood in the streets, despite many chicken littles clucking in the media about it.  Now most of the chickens are clucking again about allowing concealed-carry permit holders to pick up their kids from school while armed.  But this article is predicting that nothing will happen -- because they don't want to wear the feathers. 

It will be a long, long road back to credibility on firearms for the media, but as they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The NRA and the Virginia Citizen's Defense League has a survey of the two primary candidates that you might want to check out.  The short version: Bill Bolling answered most of the questions correctly, but Sean Connaughton chose the anti-gun option for three more questions.  That means Bill Bolling is the better candidate on the gun issue, at least if you believe the two organizations behind the survey.

You might think that the gun bigots would learn from experience, since in other ways they resemble thinking human beings. But there's ample evidence to the contrary. What sort of evidence? Well, there was a report released recently by a major scientific organization on gun control. The report conceded that there was absolutely no evidence that any gun control law they studied had any beneficial effect whatsoever. (They did not bother to analyze the evidence for detrimental effects). The conclusion of the report was the "more study is needed".

Another good example is the arguments raised by gun bigots against various aspects of concealed carry. The arguments are almost always centered around the idea that ordinary people carrying firearms will result in "blood in the streets". That's shorthard for the idea that whatever new area being opened up will turn into a parody of the old west, with people having shootouts at the drop of a hat and so-called "impulse killings" driving crime rates through the roof.

They make this argument, and every single time they are proven wrong. If you take data points from, for example, every single police chief or sheriff in a state both before and after shall-issue concealed-carry laws are put into effect, you'll almost invariably get warnings and concerns beforehand -- and then, in the followup, no one had any problems.

You would think these people would look into what happened in other states before answering that sort of question, to avoid looking stupid. But I guess not.

This piece is a extreme example of exactly that problem. Two bills in the Virginia legislature would have allowed localities to ban possession of firearms in public libraries (even by concealed-carry permit holders). This isn't something done in response to a problem. It's just an attempt to create a mini-zone where gun control is allowed. As public buildings, libraries are not allowed to prohibit concealed carry under Virginia law.

And in response to this defeat, we get a dire warning of blood in the streets in the form of satirical humor. Here's a representative excerpt:

BALLYHACK, Va. - The Librarians Protective Association today announced that it was sponsoring an amendment to the Virginia budget pending in the General Assembly for $750,000 to arm the state's public librarians.

"We believe that an armed librarian at the reference desk would tend to reduce or even eliminate annoying and repetitive requests for information," said Annie Duckworth, a spokesperson for the LPA. "A Glock, properly exhibited, tends to curtail superfluous inquiry."

"The weapon can be mounted to fire through the book return portal, thereby obviating the need to exhibit the weapon and unnecessarily concern other patrons. Besides, we'll also be able to get the drop on almost everyone."

If that seems insane to you, well, you're right. It's insane. If concealed carry in libraries was presenting a problem, it would already be happening. This is not a new problem. This is established law. Libraries have not been turned into shooting galleries.

But somehow, the gun bigots can't process that. They keep coming up with the same arguments, and those arguments keep losing.

I'm beginning to think that the only way a new gun control proposal can be taken seriously is ignorance. That's why the gun bigots are constantly bringing up new ideas. As soon as one of their arguments is tested against reality, it fails. And so we had the assault weapons ban, which was going to save us from criminals, drug dealers, and the "scary militia groups". Except those groups either weren't shooting people, or used different guns to shoot people, or didn't mind giving up their bayonet lug when shooting people. The law had no effect. It is now discredited.

So the gun bigots come up with a new one. (Their choice seems to be the .50 rifle this time). This idea will fail as soon as someone, somewhere, implements it (California already has a ban) and measures the results. It's self-discreditting. And yet, some people just don't get it.

In Virginia, it's libraries. In Utah, it's cars:

My car is my castle. Isn't yours?

And because I have my own rolling castle, I should have every right to defend it - with a .357 Magnum if I want, and with no concealed weapon permit to pack it. I mean, who wouldn't want to abscond with my vehicle, this 6-year-old Honda Accord with door dings, a monstrous 4-cylinder engine and purring automatic transmission? As wheeled castles go, it's not exactly the Palace at Versailles, I'll grant you. It's more like a listing A-frame, a fishing cabin, its paint peeling and with no indoor plumbing.

Who cares? It's my castle, and I'm in charge.

In my rolling castle, I often have a set of loyal subjects, also known as my children, along for the ride. If I had the right to pack heat without a permit, I could enlist these serfs in protecting our dominion. If a fellow driver cast me a menacing look at a stoplight, I could order one of the kids to reach into the glove compartment and whip out our "protection." Just to show 'em who's boss, you know. This would be our right. Our principle.

Oh, horror of horrors! To think that someone in Utah might be carrying a firearm in their car for personal defense without a permit! There will be blood in the streets!

Well, I've got news for you.

There's no blood in Vermont. There's no blood in Alaska. Both states have permitless concealed carry. Not just in vehicles. Everywhere. Go ahead. Pull up the crime rate in Vermont. Pull it up in Alaska. Search for newspaper articles describing illegal shootings by non-felons outside their homes.

There is no blood in the streets.

A group to which I belong was recently written up on the front page of the Washington Post concerning an incident in which we were openly carrying holstered firearms in a resaurant. [...] I'm in a group that practices firing arms at a local range, and after the session we often go out to a restaurant. It's a social outing growing from common interests and conversation. Most of us in the group, which includes a number of women, have permits to carry a concealed weapon. Virgina law, however, restricts concealed carry in any establishment with a liquor license, which includes most restaurants. The accepted and lawful response to the restriction is to simply expose the holstered weapon in order to conform to the law, a practice called "open carry." A number of us in the "Friday Night Group" were approached by a small cadre of policemen in a local Champps restaurant after a citizen (possibly the restaurant manager) called 911.

The problem with open carry is simple: it attracts attention, often the wrong sort of attention, from people unfamiliar with firearms. And that often attracts attention from the local police. Even if they merely question you and let you go, it's an embarassing and potentially dangerous situation.

If you're willing to give up some time and put yourself at risk in return for the chance to convince people, open-carry offers advantages. The only way we are going to return to a more normal national awareness of firearms is to come "out of the closet": to let people know that people around them own guns, use guns, and carry guns without causing problems. Concealed carry allows for some of the benefits, and avoids the hassle of dealing with the hoplophic, but also removes the opportunity for education.

The more often people see other people, openly carrying arms but not harming anyone, the more comfortable they will become around weapons. Gun owners have been forced into the "closet" for two long, allowing our opponents to paint lurid pictures in the minds of the ignorant. It's time we started coming out.

Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., switching positions from a decade ago, joined Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., yesterday in proposing to extend a federal ban on certain assault weapons.

Warner joined Feinstein in introducing a bill to extend the current ban on military-style assault weapons for another 10 years. The current ban, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, is scheduled to expire in September.

"Although I voted against the ban a decade ago, over the past ten years, it has reduced crime dramatically and has made our streets safer," Warner said yesterday in a statement.

"The law also has protected the rights of gun owners better than many of us predicted." Warner added: "I'm pleased to join President Bush in supporting a reasonable extension of this important law."

He's lying, of course; the ban has had no effect on crime whatsoever. Let's remember this guy's name in November.

The Virginia Department of Transportation does not require independent verification that it is releasing Smart Tag information to law enforcement officers making telephone requests for records. The agency also has no written policy on releasing information on Smart Tag use. The department says, however, that it is re-examining how it releases information to police officers to ensure proper security.

Virginia law enforcement authorities are using records from the state's Smart Tag electronic highway-toll-collection system in their investigations. Though the Virginia Department of Transportation has been subpoenaed for the electronic toll-system records, it also hands over the records of vehicle movements to police without requiring a court order, the department said. Law enforcement officials subpoenaed Smart Tag records in the investigation of the deadly anthrax mail attack in the Washington area in 2001, department officials said.

The term "unConstitutional search" keeps coming to mind here.

The FBI is looking into whether or not it will investigate the outcome of the trial of Richmond Police officer David Melvin. The judge ordered a mistrial the day a verdict was to be handed down. Melvin is facing involuntary manslaughter charges for the shooting death of a robbery suspect. Defense attorneys felt a juror was tainted after having a conversation with a Richmond police officer during the trial. Melvin's case ended in a mistrial because the defense felt a juror's contact with police tainted deliberations. The NAACP thinks Richmond Police knew what they were doing when they made contact with the for-person of the jury. They find it hard to believe such a coincidence could occur the day before a verdict was to be handed down.

The bullet that wounded a woman in Fredericksburg, Va., matches ammunition that killed at least four persons in a shooting spree around the Washington area, investigators said last night.

Maj. Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania County, Va., sheriff's office said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reported that a round collected at the site of the woman's shooting is a match to rounds collected at the scenes of some fatal shootings in Montgomery County and one in the District.

Two people appear to be working together to commit these crimes, using a white van, and coordinating their attacks at times and places that make it hard for police to respond rapidly.

Certainly smells like a carefully-planned bit of terrorism.