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Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Virginian Pilot Op/Ed Nails It on McAuliffe Deal With GOP on Out-of-State Carry Permits

Kerry Dougherty has this Op/Ed in the Virginian Pilot on Governor Terry McAuliffe's deal with the GOP to restore concealed carry permit reciprocity/recognition with 25 states and she absolutely nails why this is such a big deal:
The agreement was a victory for common-sense supporters of the Second Amendment in Virginia and a blow for those who merely look for ways to nibble away at gun rights under the guise of “safety,” when it’s clear that safety has little to do with their motivation.

Case in point: Days before Christmas, Attorney General Mark Herring announced that Virginia was terminating concealed- carry reciprocity agreements with 25 states that had laws he believed were less strict than the commonwealth’s.

The heavy-handed move was ill-advised and unnecessarily provocative. Worse, it reeked of politics.

Herring’s office was unable to point to a single bad act committed by a person in possession of an out-of-state concealed- carry permit. Yet, by terminating reciprocity with more than two dozen states, many visitors to Virginia were slated to automatically lose their rights to carry weapons here, and many Virginians faced the possibility of losing their rights to carry firearms in other jurisdictions.

As I said at the time, Herring appeared to be acting unilaterally to protect the commonwealth from marauding Minnesotans and Montanans.
Her opinion piece is a stark contrast to the editorial the Pilot posted after the deal was announced where the Pilot said the governor "folded."

Dougherty is one of the few voices of reason that write for the Pilot.  She was right this time too.

1 comment:

Mike said...

I don't think that Herring was acting unilaterally at all. I think that he was acting in concert with his masters in the victim disarmament industry, I do think that he failed to expect the blowback of his decisions.