Senate Democrats on Monday passed several measures that would limit access to assault-style weapons while shooting down a proposal seeking to expand a concealed handgun permit that would allow permit-holders to also carry a wide range of other weapons.
By a 9-6 party-line vote, the Senate Courts of Justice Committee advanced Senate Bill 2, sponsored by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, that would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to possess or sell assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.
An identical measure cleared the Senate with bipartisan support last year, but it failed in the then GOP-controlled House at the time. Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, an Army veteran, has filed a similar measure in the House, which cleared the House Public Safety committee on Friday, also by a 11-9 party-line vote. Both measures are now headed to their respective chamber’s money committees for approval.
Deeds, a member of the aforementioned Senate committee, told the panel that his proposal is based on the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which expired in 2004. “For a long time we have looked at bills considered assault weapons,” Deeds said, adding that since the 2023 session, the U.S. Supreme Court “has allowed states assault weapons bans to stay in place.”
Representatives of several gun-rights advocacy groups urged the committee to reject Deeds’ proposal.
Philip Van Cleave, president of the grassroots group Virginia Citizens Defense League, noted that in California, a federal judge in October had struck down a decades-old California law banning assault weapons, calling the restriction “extreme” and unconstitutional. “So it’s not going to go very far, especially considering when it gets to the Supreme Court,” Van Cleave said. “AR-15s are the most common rifles in America right now, so it’s definitely in common use.”
Van Cleave’s colleague Patrica Webb told the panel that because the bill seeks to ban “the most commonly used firearms,” it would prohibit gun dealers like herself from selling those firearms not only to Virginians, but also to buyers in any state where they are legal. “It would pretty much put all licensed FFLs [Federal Firearms Licensees] in Virginia out of business, and the manufacturers as well,” Webb said.
And Tyler McKee, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, said his group opposed the bill because it included “arbitrary magazine restrictions” and because the increase of the minimum age from 18 to 21 that would allow possession of existing assault-style rifles would deprive the affected age group of their Second Amendment rights. “There is no historic analogy in the history of this country where the most popular firearm has been banned,” McKee said.
But several gun-control organizations are backing Deeds’ proposal, including the Virginia Education Association, Moms Demand Action, the Virginia NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Virginia.
“These firearms were manufactured, advertised and sold for one type of reason, and they should not be available to a civilian, especially an untrained civilian,” said Andrew Goddard, legislative director of the Virginia Center for Public Safety. “These are not weapons that are necessary for personal defense.”
Liddy Ballard with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said that when an assault weapon is used in a public mass shooting, “14 times as many people are injured and twice as many are killed.”
And Jeff Caruso, the executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, added that the legislation could save lives. “Every human life is sacred, and we have said that on many different bills over different years, and if it could save even one life we think it is well worth doing.”
Sen. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Loudoun County, a member of the committee and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, said that his children are attending a religious preschool, which recently improved classroom security with bulletproof doors and windows. “I just don’t understand why we need these weapons out on the street. I think we really need to consider what is positive for the commonwealth,” Subramanyam.
The committee by a 9-6 vote also passed a proposal by Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, which would prohibit carrying assault-style weapons in public. Under current law, the prohibition on carrying certain shotguns and semi-automatic center-fire rifles and pistols applies to a narrower range of firearms, only in certain localities, and only when such firearms are loaded.
While the two measures are likely to pass in both the Senate and the House of Delegates, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, has already made it clear that there was little room for additional gun control laws that Democrats will send to his desk.
“The governor is asking the General Assembly members to hold accountable those criminals that commit crimes with guns by lengthening and making more severe the penalties in order to keep criminals off the streets,” Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said last week.
Also on Monday, Democrats rejected a measure by Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland County, that would expand a concealed handgun permit to a concealed weapons permit, allowing the permit-holder to also carry a wide range of other weapons. Among the devices covered under SB 82 are dirks, bowie knives, stiletto knives, ballistic knives, machetes, razors, sling bows, spring sticks, metal knucks, blackjacks, nunchaku and throwing stars.
Gun-rights advocates welcomed McGuire’s proposal. Van Cleave said that giving permit holders less lethal options is “a good idea, rather than having just one option, which we currently have;” and Webb added that if there is no permit required to open carry a gun, just to conceal it, there should be “no reason why we should also afford that same opportunity for other weapons that are less lethal and maybe more convenient.”
Goddard, however, expressed concern that expanding a concealed carry permit to include other weapons would “take another tool away from our police to deal with the gang problem.” And Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, the committee chair, asked McGuire how one would “demonstrate confidence” with a machete, blackjack or a ballistic knife.
“I guess it would be the same as mace and things like that,” McGuire said. “These are simple weapons you use to defend yourself. It’s our God-given right to protect ourselves, our families and our children, and we need to do everything we can to make sure we are not helpless victims.”
The committee rejected McGuire’s proposal by a 9-6 party-line vote.
