Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The shooting at a parking garage at the University of Virginia has, unsurprisingly, sparked a lot of discussion. As of this writing, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. However, when have unanswered questions quelled the call for new gun control?
Right now, Gov. Glen Youngkin is getting plenty of such calls.
Following the shooting deaths of three students at the University of Virginia Sunday night, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin faced calls to implement stricter gun control laws in Virginia.
Law enforcement officials were still gathering details Monday about the shooting and hadn’t determined how the alleged shooter, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., obtained the firearm used to kill three university football players. It’s unclear if any law would have prevented the shooting spree, since Virginia already ranks as having among the nation’s strongest gun laws. But Youngkin’s offer of prayers in the aftermath was deemed insufficient by gun-control advocates.
“You’ll be glad to know the governor of Virginia, a lifetime NRA member, is praying for the University of Virginia,” Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action tweeted Monday. “His priorities are restricting trans rights, critical race theory and abortion. He’s done nothing to address gun violence.”
Senator Louise Lucas, chairperson of the Education and Health Committee, tweeted that, “The senseless gun violence at UVA last night is horrific and begs the question; how long is it going to take and how many lives will be lost before we pass bipartisan common sense gun control laws?”
Like what?
So far as we’re aware, the accused shooter here had no criminal record that would preclude him from owning a firearm. He had a concealed carry violation, but that didn’t appear to rise to the level of a felony, so there’s nothing that would have necessarily stopped him from purchasing a firearm.
Is Youngkin to back an assault weapon ban, as many have suggested is needed after this horrible tragedy? After all, there’s no indication that the alleged killer even owned a so-called assault weapon, much less used one during the murders.
A handgun is the more likely weapon used, so what is Youngkin to do?
Waiting periods? The alleged killer had his gun for a while, it seems, so what good would that have done?
Further gun rationing? How many guns do they think it takes to kill someone?
Honestly, all this talk about gun control, but no one can show us one concrete example of anything that would have actually made an impact. They’re screeching about generalities, that we’re supposed to just roll over and listen to, but they don’t even know what happened either.
They’re pontificating and demanding that Youngkin step up and follow through with their anti-gun desires out of reflex. They don’t know anything, but they know they want something and they want Youngkin to bend the knee because of what happened at UVA.
Yet they have nothing to offer.
Again, that’s because it’s a reflex at that point. It’s the cue they needed to start their part of the script. There was a horrific shooting and they just know their job is to demand gun control, so they do their job.
It’s not to wait until the facts are in and see if there were some failure that needs to be corrected. Should the alleged killer have been legally barred from buying a gun due to a past felony conviction? We already know that he was on the UVA radar and the school did nothing about it. Do those failures go beyond that?
We simply don’t know.
Youngkin, to his credit, hasn’t responded as of yet. He shouldn’t.
After all, these demands aren’t really for him. It’s for the people who fund the anti-gun narrative so they’ll keep the money rolling in.
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2022/11/15/youngkin-gun-control-n64365