A friend of mine tipped me off to this:
Breaking: Virginia vows to shut down all gun ranges not owned by the state
Virginia just went full blown communist.
If it wasn’t bad enough watching the action unfold surrounding unconstitutional gun laws and the militias being formed to fight against them, now it seems like Virginia is trying to pull yet another move.
They want to shut down every gun range in the state that isn’t owned by the government.
According to House Bill 567, any indoor shooting range would be prohibited by law – UNLESS it was inside of a building owned by the state.
And any business owners who decided to defy the law could be facing up to a $100,000 fine and potential civil penalties.
It’s actually worse than that. Text of the bill:
§ 18.2-511.2. Indoor shooting ranges; prohibited in private buildings; exceptions; penalty.
A. As used in this section, “indoor shooting range” means any fully enclosed or indoor area or facility designed for the use of rifles, shotguns, pistols, silhouettes, skeet, trap, or black powder or any other similar sport shooting.
B. It is unlawful to operate an indoor shooting range in any building not owned or leased by the Commonwealth or the federal government unless (i) fewer than 50 employees work in the building or (ii) (a) at least 90 percent of the users of the indoor shooting range are law-enforcement officers, as defined in § 9.1-101, or federal law-enforcement officers, (b) the indoor shooting range maintains a log of each user’s name, phone number, address, and the law-enforcement agency where such user is employed, and (c) the indoor shooting range verifies each user’s identity and address by requiring all users to present a government-issued photo-identification card.
C. Any person that violates the provisions of this section is subject to a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 nor more than $100,000 for the initial violation and $5,000 per day for each day of violation thereafter.
This bill exists to eliminate all indoor shooting ranges with civilian access.
Indoor ranges are growing in importance for the shooting community. Outdoor ranges are being shut down all over the country using noise restrictions, environmental restrictions, and due to the growth of cities and suburbs are being zoned or sued out of existence by residents.
If you live in a city, access to an outdoor range might be quite a drive out into the county for you. It was for me in Chicago. The few outdoor ranges around were way out on the edges of the suburbs, down in Plainfield, and they were mostly private clubs with expensive membership fees and long waiting lists. The only public access ranges were indoors.
Even in Huntsville, the only two outdoor ranges I know of are a good 45 minutes away, but there are three nice indoor ranges nearby.
A law that banned private, civilian, indoor ranges would eliminate range access for most Virginians who live in metropolitan areas.
All the Governor would have to do is then eliminate outdoor ranges using noise and environmental regulations and it would be illegal to target shoot in the Commonwealth, except maybe for some parcels of private land in rural counties.
Recreational shooting for most Virginians would be banned.
Forget gun bans, this would be the most severe attack possible on gun rights in Virginia. Even if you owned only the guns you were allowed to, you can’t use them or train with them. You couldn’t take your kids to the range and teach them the joys of shooting.
Without shooting the gun culture dies, they know it, and this is what they are trying to do.
I’ve seen commentary pointing out that as written, the only range that this is specifically targeting the NRA Headquarters range, as it runs afoul of B(i) and B(ii)(a).
I doubt it would stop there. Pass the law. Amend it from 50 to 20 to 10 to 5 to 1.
Also, how does it count “employees who work in the building.” All at the same time to total payroll?
Take decent size gun store and range, add up all the people on payroll, including part time, etc. It wouldn’t be that hard to hit 50.
So if it only targets the NRA, does that make it any less outrageously offensive? I don’t think so.
For one thing, Bills of Attainder are explicitly forbidden by the Constitution. And targeting the activities of a citizen’s organization is also plainly outlawed by the First Amendment.
It’s time for these criminals to be charged with felony conspiracy to infringe constitutional rights, arrested, swiftly tried, and sent off to jail for the maximum sentence.
“So if it only targets the NRA, does that make it any less outrageously offensive?”
Huh? I was implying no such thing.
Indeed you did not, and I did not intend to claim that. If my words were unclear and suggested that to you, I apologize for my inadequate wording.
My intent was to point out that an illegal bill that victimizes only one party is no less illegal than one that victimizes a million. So the analysis you mentioned may be an indication of the criminals’ mindset, but it in no way diminishes or excuses the evil. If those analyses come across as suggesting they do, they need to be condemned.
Thank you for clarifying.
I believe the “or” is important in this one. Not many ranges that I know have 50+ employees, so most ranges seem to be excluded because of this, however, as stated above, the NRA apparently has a shooting range in this delegate’s district and he has a problem with that.
1. The anti gun people all claim that private gun owners are untrained and reckless.
2. The anti-gun people want to impose ammo limits and close gun ranges to the private individuals cannot practice and get trained.
If all these new laws pass, Virginians can move to a free state, like New York or California.
Yikes.
There’s also Senate Bill #353, which aims to close all outdoor ranges within 500 yards of residential-zoned areas.
Just FYI.
Sorry for the repeat comment. The site threw a 500 Error the first time.
There’s also Senate Bill #353, which aims to ban all outdoor ranges within 500 yards of residential-zoned areas (regardless of whether homes have actually been built).
Just FYI.