Abingdon crowd rejects governor's call for action on gun control following Virginia Beach shooting

[Elderberry]

Roanoke Times By Amy Friedenberger 6/18/2019

Abingdon crowd rejects governor's call for action on gun control following Virginia Beach mass shooting

A roundtable in Southwest Virginia about gun policy on Tuesday started with an audience member’s recitation of the Second Amendment.

From there, residents passionate about gun rights peppered Brian Moran, Virginia’s secretary of public safety, with concerns about an upcoming special session in which the General Assembly will take up gun control proposals.

“You are chipping away at people’s gun rights,” a woman told him.

Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, called for the General Assembly to convene July 9 in the wake of the May 31 mass shooting at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center that left 12 people dead. Northam’s seeking measures including universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, a ban on high-capacity magazines, and the restoration of a state law to restrict handgun purchases to one a month.

Northam is also interested in legislation requiring people to report stolen or lost guns within 24 hours as well as extreme risk protection orders. Extreme risk protection orders allow a third party — in Virginia, Moran said this would be a police officer or prosecutor — to petition a judge for a warrant to seize legally owned guns if someone is determined to be an immediate threat to themselves or others. Research has shown the measure to be promising in reducing suicides by firearm.

“This is confiscation without representation,” one man said about extreme risk protection orders. “What you’re proposing is not about guns, it’s about control.”

More: https://www.roanoke.com/news/politics/abingdon-crowd-rejects-governor-s-call-for-action-on-gun/article_089dd9ab-7671-548d-93e7-3ae37976474d.html