It seems as if Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s attack on law-abiding gun owners wasn’t enough, the disgraced public official and his allies in the General Assembly now want the state’s hard-working taxpayers to foot the bill for their unconstitutional schemes.
The Daily Caller reported that the budget bill (HB30) includes an appropriation of a quarter million dollars to carry out a host of gun control measures that Northam and his anti-gun allies hope to enact.
The $250,000 is appropriated to the Corrections Special Reserve Fund in order to provide for the “increase in the operating cost of adult correctional facilities resulting from the enactment” of Northam’s gun control measures.
Among the laws that this allocation is meant to fund is a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, the criminalization of private firearms transfers, and gun confiscation orders issued without due process.
Aside from the insult of forcing law-abiding Virginia taxpayers to pay for the diminution of their rights, the gun control allocation is a big waste of resources. Northam’s gun control measures will not make Virginia safer.
Statistics show that long guns are rarely used in violent crimes. In 2018, the FBI reported that there were five times as many individuals listed as killed with “knives or cutting instruments,” than with rifles of any kind. The data also showed that rifles were listed as being used in less homicides than “blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)” or “personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.).”
Under Virginia law, a police officer may take an individual into emergency custody for a mental health evaluation without prior court approval. The person detained in this manner is then evaluated to determine whether they meet the criteria for a temporary detention. If a person that was subject to a temporary detention order and subsequently agreed to voluntary admission to a mental health facility is prohibited from possessing firearms until their rights are restored by a court.
Point is, tax-paying Virginians shouldn’t have to foot the bill for Northam and Bloomberg’s attack on their fundamental rights.
