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Earlier today Governor McAuliffe made his first suggested amendment to a bill awaiting his signature. What is his first suggested amendment as Governor? Gun control.
The amendment is clearly meant to poke gun owners in the eye! Not a good way for McAuliffe to start off his tenure as Governor, but not unexpected either.
The Governor’s suggested amendment modifies HB 962, which is Delegate Cline’s bill clarifying current law as it deals with storing a handgun in a vehicle or vessel. Right now the law allows a person who does not have a CHP to be able to store a handgun in an UNLOCKED, but closed, compartment or container in their vehicle or vessel.
The Governor’s suggestion completely changes HB 962, requiring that the compartment or container be LOCKED! That’s not a clarification of current law - that is rewriting current law! It also puts the gun owner at increased risk by making his handgun less accessible.
That amendment would move Virginia backwards and that is simply not acceptable.
The Governor’s suggested amendment is just that, a suggestion. The House can simply reject the suggestion and the bill goes back to the Governor in its original form for him to either sign, not sign, or to veto.
If the Governor either signs or doesn’t sign the bill, it will become law (it’s just a clarification to prevent false arrests, so nothing will really change as far as the rights of gun owners go). If he vetoes the bill, it will then become part of the veto override session that will happen in April. If there are enough votes in the House and Senate (2/3 required), the Governor’s veto will be overridden and the bill will become law. Otherwise the bill will die and current law will remain unchanged.
NOTE: If the bill dies, we won’t take a step backwards because we have both an Attorney General’s opinion and, far more importantly, case law on our side. Without the clarification that HB 962 provides, we will continue to see the occasional false arrest based on police and magistrates being confused and not doing their homework.
That the Governor would think to modify such a benign bill is mind boggling. Oh, well - it won’t stop us from making sure his desk is covered in pro-gun bills over the next 4 years nonetheless.
You will be kept in the loop as HB 962 works its way through the remainder of the legislative session. For now we have an urgent action item to do - telling the House that we want them to REJECT the Governor’s suggested amendments:
URGENT ACTION ITEM!
Click here to send a prewritten message to your Delegate (the software automatically figures out who that is based on your address and Zip+4) to reject the Governor’s suggested amendments to HB 962. This just takes seconds to do:
http://tinyurl.com/lhgp48yLet’s roll on this, VCDL!
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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