Can Anyone Explain The New VA Gun Laws?
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Transcript
34 segmentsHey, good morning, everybody. 734 on the Voice of Virginia News Radio, WRVA. My name is Rich Herrera, appreciate you joining us on this Thursday, July 9th. All right, we're going to get back to the Commonwealth of Virginia. And I said it this morning. There's so much confusion when it comes to the budget, the marijuana loss, the gun laws. What are we supposed to do? And I've said this, and I sincerely believe it. These gun laws of the Commonwealth Virginia were written either so bad and so sloppily that it's complete ineptness, or they were written so ambiguously as to allow interpretation to expand the gun laws and the gun bans that are a threat to our Second Amendment. I want to get to the bottom of this. So we reached out to the American First Policy Institute. to bring a guest on to talk about that. He's a senior fellow that works on Second Amendment issues. Knox Williams is joining us right now on News Radio, WRVA. Good morning, sir. Good morning. How are you, sir? I am confused, to be quite honest, and most of our listeners are. So here's my statement, and you tell me whether I'm on to something. The gun laws and the gun bans that we have in Virginia, that we've already seen courts... grant injunctions against, and there's so much confusion. And when I talk to people, they're trying to buy guns, and I talk to people that are gun retailers, and I see gun manufacturers leaving the state already, my contention is they wrote these so inaccurately, so sloppy, whatever words you want to use, I won't throw anything pejorative out there, but it's either done on purpose. So there's so much gray area. You can expand these beyond what you passed, or they're so inept. They wrote these things. They have no idea what they're doing. But either way, they accomplish, I think, what they were looking for is to strike the fear in the heart of a Second Amendment advocate, a legal gun owner. They have no idea what they're allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do, which is a victory for the anti-gun lobby. You're absolutely right. Look, you shouldn't have to have a law degree to be able to understand what the law is. And whether it's weaponized incompetence or truly malicious intentions, it really doesn't matter. The wild thing is how deep and how far their assault on a constitutional right, the Second Amendment, the right to keep them bear arms goes in a place like Virginia where if you told us this, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, we'd have said you're crazy. Knox Williams is joining us right now, American First Policy Institute. So where are we? I know the DOJ is going to come down here, and they're filing an injunction. I know that Jay Jones, our Attorney General, and it's his job to defend the Commonwealth's gun laws. He tried to put all four of our cases into one. That was rejected by a three-court panel, pretty significant loss for him. Where are we with all of this? Because right now, I have people that just don't know. Am I allowed to have one? Are they going to take it away from me? Have I broken the law? What am I doing? Sure, yeah. So there's multiple lawsuits challenging the ban on AR-15, semi-automatic firearms and magazine capacity. The biggest movement that we got yesterday was in the NRA's case, Santola Creek Hats. Judge Campbell issued a statewide injuncton that covers all law enforcement, so not just state police, but every law enforcement within the Commonwealth.
And effectively says starting July 21st because he contended that they needed time to receive the notice of the injunction. But beginning, or excuse me, July 21st, they will not be able to enforce the semi-automatic firearm and magazine bandwidth in the Commonwealth, which is a huge, huge deal. Now. Let me go down this rabbit hole with you a little further. Jay Jones has said, well, they might have a ban and an injunction, but the law still stands. So where does that leave me as a gun retailer, and where does that leave me as a person that potentially would like to buy an AR-15? So that's something that we're actually seeking clarification from the ATF and from the Department of Justice on. But in our contention, I mean, look, the injunction does what it does. It blocks the enforcement of the law, which effectively nullifies it. The law might stand, but in the same way that the Supreme Court, you know, can overturn a law. Well, that law technically still stands, but nonetheless, the enforcement of it is completely gutted. So Jay Jones can say what he wants. You know, we're talking about a guy who, you know, would like to watch the assassination of his political opponents in front of that opponent's children. His judgment is certainly lacking. Don't know how the voters elected him this last cycle, but nonetheless. Well, that's a whole story for another day. But I'll go back to my contention. For those that are Second Amendment advocates, and we follow the law. Whether we like the law or not, we believe in law and order. And especially if you're a constitutionalist or a conservative. And for my friends that are gun retailers, they're not touching this with a 10-foot pole because just because this injunction says one thing and that injunction says something else, they still have so much liability out there that they're actually paralyzed and they can't take one step forward, one step backwards. They're stuck in a corner because of the ambiguity of these laws. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I would expect there to be some clarification here in the coming days, hopefully as early as today, but we can't make any promises, obviously on that. But, I mean, to your point, right, like it's just, it's nonsensical for Jay Jones or anyone within the Abigail Spanberger administration, you know, to say anything other than, you know, this is unenforceable. You know, the entire point of an injunction is to give relief from application of the enjoying law. That just is what it is. And whether they like it or not, they obviously don't. You know, they would rather see no one have guns in the Commonwealth. You know, we as a community need to fight that tooth and nail. We need to push back as hard as we can. But, you know, I've got faith in the DOJ. I've got faith in Todd Blanche and Harmeet Dillon. They have been doing a fantastic job pushing and fighting for our constitutional rights. And, you know, we expect them to stand up big in this one. Knox Williams is joining us right now from the American First Policy Institute. I, Knox, believe it or not, I have people that just love getting mad at me all morning long, and they are true believers, liberals, progressives, Democrats, and I love them. I appreciate them listening to the program.
they're pushing back on this saying, no, no, these gun laws, these gun bans are good. They're going to keep us safe. They're going to stop mass shootings. They're good. We can't allow these weapons of war to be in the hands of ordinary citizens. That's not what we meant during the Second Amendment. The technology has taken over, and there's a whole litany, and you've heard them all. Take a minute here and just tell them why. these gun laws are so draconian and so anti-American and so against the Second Amendment, which is the lifeblood of this country and the Constitution. Sure. I mean, look, they love to cherry pick, right? You know, it's the right of the people, whether it's, you know, to peaceably assemble, to have free press, to, you know, utilize modern technology for free speech, right? No one's out there saying that the Internet is not protected by the First Amendment. Technological advances are not something that the Constitution meant to curtail, but rather to encompass as things changed. I think the most disingenuous part of this whole... argument is, you know, the idea that banning semi-armonic firearms and rifles of any type is going to have a significant impact on crime. Rifles of any type are used in about 2% of all homicides. That is about the same as blunt objects like hammers or baseball bats, yet there's no lobby to go out and ban baseball bats and hammers, right? You know, so I think it's incredibly disingenuous. I think it's misguided. I think that it's fundamentally trying to undermine. you know, the basis of our society and this American project, and I think that we need to fight it tooth-mail. It's interesting. The senators that pushes this so much says, well, I'm doing it because I don't want to see another child's shot. And like you said, of the bans he has, the R-15s, that's not where you're going to see most common street crime or the shootings that we see. Very rarely are something like a rifle. The other part is Dan Helmer, who's a delegate here, is constantly saying, you know, these are weapons of war, these are weapons of war that don't belong in the hands of civilians. I was having this conversation with my son, and he pointed this out in school. He's a political science major. When a kid was screaming, we don't need weapons of war, citizens should not have better weapons than the military. He pointed out, During the time of the Revolution, when this Second Amendment was written, he said that the army and the militia used muskets. The civilians that came and joined as the militia used rifles, like Dan Morgan and his Green Mountain boys. He said, civilians, not having weapons of war, he goes, that's silly because you just look back to when they wrote this, the civilians, the frontiersmen, used rifles, which were better firearms than what?
the British Redcoats had at the time. Absolutely. And mostly their own personally owned rifles when they showed up to muster, you know, the idea that that civilians have better, you know, equipment than the military, A, that's a military acquisition thing. But B, it's also not true. And you can really trace that back to the anti-gun lobby, trying to conflate and confuse people with the AR-15 and the M-16 because they look so similar. You know, they look identical on the outside, but the functionality on the inside is different. You know, one is semi-automatic. One is a machine gun, technically under the law, meaning you can pull the trigger and fire more than one round. And that is a huge difference. It's kind of like having a Ferrari body with a Honda engine in it for civilians. So, I mean, the whole thing is the anti-gun arguments are all predicated on fearmongering. They're predicated on misinformation and misdirection and effectively propaganda. And it's just, it's. It's wild how much they want to attack that core constitutional right. It's something that I'll honestly never understand. If people want to follow what you're doing at AFPI, how do they follow you in Knox? Now that we've had you on, I need you to start coming back on because I need more information, not less information. I need to stay on top of all of this. How can people follow you your work and what AFPI does? Yeah, check us out. We're on all the socials. America First Policy Institute. We're going to be issuing some papers here, some foundational research on the Second Amendment. Our first one is going to be focusing primarily on the National Firearms Act. So we're pretty excited to get that out here in the coming weeks. But yeah, keep looking. I'd love to come back at any time. Always love talking about the Second Amendment. Always love talking about the fights. And quite frankly, it's a pretty exciting time for the Second Amendment, obviously. stuff did not go well in Virginia. Elections have consequences. But hopefully we can win some of these court cases, submit these freedoms, ensure that they don't encroach upon them in the future. And, you know, the next election cycle, hopefully we can start taking some of this stuff back. If anything, Knox, I think this is an eye-opener. When we see how bad this budget is and we see with our Second Amendment rights, we see what's going on with this budget, the things that you have. when you have one-party rule. I don't like one-party rule, whether it's Republicans or Democrats. I think you have to have accountability. And we're seeing what happens when you have one party that has no accountability. Things like this happen. So I'd love to have you continue to join us to talk about this. Yes, sir. I'd love to join you. Thank you so much. Knox Williams is joining us right now from the American First Policy Institute. That was some very useful information right there. I'll tell you that. Let's see. It is 746 this morning on Richmond's Morning News. Hey, quick reminder, today's program is brought to you by 8 Plus Windows.
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