The Virginia Senate Election of 2019 saw Democrats taking control over both chambers of the Virginia Legislature for the first time since 1994 and ultimately controlling the state government by flipping both the House and Senate. Democrat Ralph Northam was sworn in as Virginia Governor in 2018. Not surprisingly, this Democratic stranglehold on the legislature and governorship made for easily passable proposals such as gun control measures.
This includes a state law banning the ownership of “assault weapons,” universal background checks, limiting the magazine capacity in the state, and a red flag law. The legislation of the ban introduced in November from Del. Richard Saslaw (D) would prohibit the sale, transport, possession, transfer, and manufacture of “assault weapons.” Currently, Virginia runs universal background checks on dealers, not buyers.
According to the office of the Democratic governor, the proposed “assault weapons” ban in Virginia would “include a grandfather clause for individuals who already own assault weapons, with the requirement they register their weapons before the end of a designated grace period.” State Del. Kenneth Plum (D) had filed the bill to institute the universal background checks which will be considered during the 2020 session.
A gun-control group allied with presidential candidate and billionaire Michael Bloomberg called Everytown for Gun Safety spent $2.5 million in Virginia that resulted in two Senate seats and one House seat flipped in the November primaries. For now, 76 counties out of 95 counties have declared they will not enforce future gun control legislation. Nine out of 38 independent cities and 13 towns have adopted Second Amendment sanctuaries. These are “declarations of support” by county officials for local citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Clearly, Democrats holding public office have already announced their reactions to the defiance of county officials in Virginia — reactions supporters of the Second Amendment have been right about all along despite supporters of gun control declaring otherwise, degrading it to a “conspiracy theory,” and even a Former Supreme Court justice calling for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment following the deadly shooting of Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida last year.
Governor Northam hinted there would be consequences for law enforcement not following the stricter gun legislation if passed: “If we have constitutional laws on the books and law enforcement officers are not enforcing those laws on the books, then there are going to be some consequences. But I’ll cross that bridge if and when we get to it.” Obviously, the governor did not elaborate on what those “consequences” would be.
Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) further remarked, “And ultimately, I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law. That’s his call, because I don’t know how serious these counties are and how severe the violations of law will be. But that’s obviously an option he has.” Also resorting to bullying the counties into compliance, McEachin also claims that counties refusing to enforce any state-level gun control laws “certainly risk funding, because if the sheriff’s department is not going to enforce the law, they’re going to lose money. The counties’ attorneys’ offices are not going to have the money to prosecute because their prosecutions are going to go down.”
Rep. Gerry Connolly chimed in, calling for non-compliant law enforcement officials to resign if they refuse to enforce the state’s gun laws: “I would hope they either resign in good conscience, because they cannot uphold the law which they are sworn to uphold, or they’re prosecuted for failure to fulfill their oath,” he told The Washington Examiner.
It might not have crossed Rep. Connolly’s mind that the Virginia law enforcement oath of honor states police officers are to “always uphold the Constitution,” the supreme law of the land.
Now that it has been established what Democratic politicians have in store for the future of gun rights and gun owners starting in the state of Virginia, it is certainly worth mentioning this is the exact reason for why the Second Amendment was created and ratified into our U.S. Constitution nearly 230 years ago.
The Founders were firmly aware of what a tyrannical monarchy looked like and why the need for the people to arm themselves was vital for the survival of a republic. Noah Webster, called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” wrote in 1787:
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in American cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”
One Founding Father Samuel Adams, said during the Massachusetts’ Constitution ratification convention in 1788, “The said Constitution [will] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms…”
How about those “militias” so commonly taken from the Second Amendment by liberals to argue as former Justice Stevens argued, that was never intended for individual gun owners’ right, instead for organized militias? As the Constitution and its amendments were being ratified, ‘militias’ back in the 18th century composed of individual members of the community that would gather together to defend their homes in the events of battle that so often played out in the American Revolution.
Another Founding Father Richard Henry Lee elaborated further in 1788: “A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves… and include all men capable of bearing arms… To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms.”
The “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison said, “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”
Simply put, the reasoning behind the Second Amendment’s existence and meaning is straight-forward in explanation by those that created and approved it into the supreme law of the United States of America.
This also gives reason for counties like Tazewell County, Virginia that have officially begun forming their own militia after their Board of Supervisors passed two resolutions affirming both a Second Amendment sanctuary and militia in their own county with County Administrator Eric Young citing Article 1, Second 13, of the Constitution of Virginia that “reserves the right to ‘order’ militia to the localities… Thus, if anyone from the state tries to remove the Sheriff from their elected office because they refuse unjust laws, those state officials will be faced with a lawful militia composed of citizens within the state.”
Virginia counties are not the only ones involved in this new and growing “Second Amendment sanctuary.” Counties in Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, and Texas are also joining in to declare that restrictive gun control laws passed under their state legislations are unconstitutional and therefore will not be enforced there. Some of these declarations have come about after the election of Democrats to public office such as Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker (D) who also pushed for gun control.
As long as those in office plot to restrict our Second Amendment rights that make our other liberties possible, more counties across the country must join this movement in defense even as the prospect of the 2020 election looms over us.
