Information You Can Use When Contacting Delegates, Senators

Below are some bullets you can use when contacting your legislators during the Special Session.

• Law-abiding Virginia gun owners are being scapegoated by anti-gun politicians in their attempt to hastily force through ineffective gun control measures, many of which were already rejected earlier this year during the regular session. Such imprudent action should never be tolerated. Given the alleged conduct of the governor and lieutenant governor that has recently come to light, their impatience with the normal legislative process is all the more suspicious.

• Virginia gun owners and all those who support freedom and demand integrity in the legislative process must take action to defeat Northam’s gun control opportunism.

• According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, since 1950, 98 percent of mass public shootings in the United States have occurred in places where general citizens are banned from carrying, including the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. Will the Northam administration consider legislation eliminating these deadly so-called gun-free zones?

• The Northam administration is seeking to ban so-called assault-style weapons. The gunman in Virginia Beach used a handgun. Additionally, we had a federal ban on those firearms for 10 years, and that Congress lifted the ban because there was ZERO evidence it reduced crime or saved lives? How would such a ban have made a difference?

• Law enforcement at the scene of the Virginia Beach shooting say the sound of gunfire led them to the gunman. Clearly the so-called "silencer" used by the gunman did not silence his firearm. What is the point of banning them? Many law-abiding gun owners – including members of law enforcement – use suppressors to protect their hearing.

• The governor wants to ban bump stocks in Virginia. Bump stocks are already banned and the shooter did not use one.

• The governor wants to reinstate Virginia’s failed one-gun-a-month law. The gunman in Virginia Beach had ample time to purchase the two handguns he used over a period of months and years. Handgun rationing would not have prevented this shooting.

• The governor wants mandates requiring law-abiding gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms. The gunman purchased his firearms legally and did not acquire them through theft. Can you please explain how this proposal would have prevented this tragedy?

• The governor is proposing government mandates for home firearm storage – so-called Child Access Prevention laws. Not only was the gunman in this case NOT a child, but there is no scientific evidence that government mandated, one-size-fits-all storage schemes reduce juvenile accidental firearm deaths or suicides. A recent study by the Crime Prevention Research Center found these mandates could make it harder for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves.

• Governor Northam is using this tragedy to push for so-called universal background checks – which in reality are more government mandates that would criminalize law-abiding gun owners and make it harder for people like myself to defend my home and family. The gunman passed a background check, so how does the governor think this proposal would have prevented this tragedy?

• Would the Northam administration consider partnering with federal prosecutors to reduce crime like the City of Richmond did in the 1990s with “Project Exile?” The program was credited with dramatically reducing Richmond’s violent crime by shipping firearm violators to far-off federal prisons.