Gov. Ralph Northam’s Push to Ban Private Gun Sales Defeated in Committee

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s (D) push to ban private gun sales was defeated in the Virginia Senate Courts of Justice Committee Monday morning.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Second Amendment supporters held a Monday morning rally in Capitol Square while Northam planned speak to gun control supporters mid-afternoon.

On January 10, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Northam was pushing a ban on private gun sales by seeking a requirement that all gun sales, retail or private, be performed via a background check. This would have required law-abiding Virginians to seek out a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) to do a background check if a private citizen was selling a gun to a neighbor, a lifelong friend, or a co-worker.

Colorado already has a similar law and charges a fee every time a background check is performed. In the end, the fee is like a gun tax that raises the sale price for each gun sold without offering any substantial hindrance to high profile attacks in return. High profile attackers almost always acquire their guns via background checks, which is easy to do if one has avoided accumulating a criminal history.

Background checks look backward, as the name suggests, and where there is no criminal history there is no reason to prevent a gun sale. Because of this, the attackers who struck the Texas church (November 5, 2017), Las Vegas concert (October 1, 2017), Orlando Pulse (June 12, 2016), Alexandria baseball practice (June 14, 2017), Aurora movie theater (July 20, 2012), and Virginia Tech (April 16, 2007) all passed background checks for their guns.

Northam’s push to “allow localities to ban firearms at permitted events” was also defeated in committee.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.