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I warned that if the anti-liberty Democratic leadership in the Senate got control during the special elections, we would be seeing all kinds of shenanigans. Its not that I am a seer, I just saw what happened the last time they were in power.
Well, on Monday, Delegate Carrs HB 810 came up in front of the Senate Courts of Justice committee. This bill started as a celebratory gunfire bill, with all the same worthless language that Senator Marshs version, SB 65, had. The House Courts of Justice committee changed the bill and threw Delegate Carr a bone by totally rewriting it from a celebratory gunfire bill to a malicious wounding bill. VCDL then went from strongly oppose to neutral as the bill was no longer just a duplicate of current law, but actually did something useful.
When HB 810 arrived at the Senate Courts of Justice committee, the committee leadership (Senators Marsh and McEachin) skipped the normal protocols that would have allowed the public to speak on the bill (heck, even Carr didnt get to speak on her own bill) and Senator Marsh immediately said the committee was going to put the bill back into its original celebratory gunfire form to match SB 65. Senator McEachin quickly made the motion to do so and, with a total elapsed time of around 30 seconds, the Houses changes were thrown away and the bill reported out of committee. It now heads to the Senate Floor where it will most likely pass in its reverted form and head back to the House as amended.
VCDLs position on HB 810 is now once again strongly oppose.
What will happen next is most likely a showdown between the House and the Senate over the two different versions of the bill. I will be surprised if SB 65 and HB 810 arent both killed.
Also on Monday Bloobergs group Mothers Demand Action was supposed to have a stroller jam to try to resurrect Senator Favolas "misdemeanors take away gun rights bill, SB 510, from the dead. They had all of two strollers and a handful of members. I was looking around to see if there was a closet somewhere they could jam, but most were too big. They also had a press conference to pressure the House Courts of Justice to bring back the bill. But, in the end, rigor mortis had set in and the bill remained dead.
Press coverage:
From wtvr.com: https://tinyurl.com/n6mpbun
From godanriver.com: http://tinyurl.com/n8pdh9d
From dailypress.com: http://tinyurl.com/lucotyn
From wric.com: http://tinyurl.com/mlawsqy
From timesdispatch.com: http://tinyurl.com/k89l8ll
From wtkr.com: http://tinyurl.com/myztwx6
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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.
VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]