Virginia: Your Hard Work Postponed What Could Have Been A Gun Control Disaster

Opinion

Virginia – -(AmmoLand.com)- Virginia Citizens Defense League thanks all of you who attended Lobby Day yesterday! The line to enter the Virginia General Assembly wrapped around the building! Our eighteen lobbying teams and other members where everywhere. It was a wonderful sight to behold!

Thanks also to those who could not attend today, but who sent those emails and made those telephone calls! Your efforts, too, made a difference.

Do I think the flood of gun owners at Lobby Day and the barrage of emails made a difference? YES!

Senator Tommy Norment Corrects A Mistake

Republican Senate Majority Leader, Tommy Norment, withdrew SB 4013, which was his bill that would have banned carry in government buildings. (VCDL members sent a massive number of emails to Senator Norment protesting that bill.) Senator Norment explained that the bill was incorrectly drafted due to a communication issue between himself and Legislative Services. VCDL thanks Senator Norment for doing the right thing and striking that bad gun-bill from the docket!

Your Activism Paid Off, As A Potential Disaster Has Been Averted For Now

The battle is not over, but today was an important day for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Republican Party’s leadership in both the Senate and the House wanted to find some real solutions to violence in our society, not just ram through useless gun control in an act of political theater. So with their leadership’s guidance, the Republican legislators stood together and sent all of the gun bills (except for the gun bill that Senator Norment struck) to the Virginia State Crime Commission for careful study and consideration.

Both the House and Senate then adjourned until mid-November, when the State Crime Commission would report back on their study, providing recommendations for the General Assembly.

(The Republicans also did the fiscally responsible thing by adjourning until November, because it costs taxpayers over $40,000 per day for the General Assembly to be in the Special Session! That is a lot of money wasted just so the Governor could deflect attention from his scandals, while not actually finding a solution to the pointless violence perpetrated in Virginia Beach.)

If you are represented by Republican legislators, be sure to thank them. Thank the Republican leadership, too.

Here is the joint letter from the Speaker of the House, Kirk Cox, and Senate Majority Leader, Tommy Norment, on using the State Crime Commission:

If Gun Owners Do Not Get Active In The Upcoming Elections In November, It Will Be Disastrous!

The balance of power between pro-self-defense legislators and anti-self-defense legislators is truly razor thin in both the House and the Senate. We MUST get back the seats lost in the last election. If the Democrat leadership takes control of the House and Senate, we are going to see massive amounts of gun control coming our way. It could transform Virginia as we know it.

What can you do?

If you have good legislators running in your district, send them money, knock on doors for them, man phone banks, ask their campaign staff for other ways you can help

If you don’t have good legislators, such as is the case for many members in NoVA, you are NOT lost or helpless: find good candidates in another district near you and support them instead! Those good candidates can counter the bad votes of your legislators during the General Assembly sessions

If you’re not already a VCDL member, JOIN! With nearly 30,000 subscribers to our VA-ALERT, it would be great if more than the current 7,000 are paying members. In addition to the terrific volunteer efforts made by VCDL members and VA-ALERT subscribers, actual membership numbers count when we work to advance our pro-self-defense agenda in the General Assembly. I would like to be able to go to the General Assembly in November and say that our membership has doubled due to the War on Self-Defense declared by the Democrat leadership.

If you’re already a VCDL member, get your family, friends, shooting, and hunting buddies to JOIN, too. This is a war that will determine whether or not we will have the means to defend ourselves in the future. None of us can sit this out.

SO MANY GREAT PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS TO THANK, AS WELL

Special thanks to the following people for having made Lobby Day a success:

• All the Team Leaders
• Our excellent rally speakers: Erich Pratt (GOA), Vincent Smith, Maj Toure (Black Guns Matter, who came all the way from Philadelphia!), Brandon Howard (VCDL, Right to Bear Arms Richmond), Pat Webb (VCDL), Bruce Jackson (VCDL), and Brendan Mooney (VCDL). You can watch their speeches once the Lobby Day video is ready
• Bruce Jackson for transporting massive amounts of supplies, working late into the night on Monday stuffing the folders that were given to all 140 legislators, and so much more
• Pat Webb, who helped keep an eye on a variety of things for me, including social media
• Jim Snyder for help with gun bill analysis and helping with policy decisions
• John Pierce for gun bill analysis, bill drafting, and updating the VCDL Legislative Tracking System
• Tess Ailshire for her help with a variety of things, including social media
• Ken Van Wyk for organizing the teams
• Bob Sadtler for helping me with lobbying and keeping a careful eye on gun bills and committee meetings
• Dennis O’Connor for a variety of things, including watching my back during the rally
• Gary Moeller and Brendon Mooney for promoting Lobby Day in Southeast Virginia
• Al Steed and his helpers for promoting Lobby Day in Southwest Virginia

And finally, a big thank you goes to both the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America. VCDL was proud to work with both organizations to achieve our shared goal of protecting the rights of Virginia’s gun owners!

About Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL):

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.

For more information, visit: www.vcdl.org.

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