July 1st was a “special” day in Virginia …

Not content with passing the hateful House Bill 751, and accidently reinstating the Sunday Blue laws, it seems the Virginia legislators took away gun control from all local jurisdictions, but put nothing up in its place!
The end effect is that packing a 6 shooter is now Legal in public anywhere in the Old Dumb Onion! (for you out-of-staters, thats a play on Virginia’s title as The Old Dominion)

Here’s some interesting passages from a July 15th story in The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50416-2004Jul14.html

In Virginia, as in many states, carrying a concealed weapon requires a permit, issued by a local court. But no permit is required to simply wield a gun in the open, a right reinforced by a state law that took effect July 1. Not so in the District and Maryland, unless you’re a police or federal officer.

The first incident, at a Starbucks on Leesburg Pike near Tysons Corner, might have inspired other gun owners to carry openly. It began shortly before 10 p.m. June 14, Perez said, with a complaint from a citizen. Police arrived to find a 19-year-old man carrying a .22-caliber pistol and a 21-year-old man with a 9mm pistol.

Perez said an officer spoke with the men, then took their guns and charged them with possession of a firearm in a public place. Virginia law 18.2-287.4 expressly prohibits “carrying loaded firearms in public areas.”

But the second paragraph of the law defines firearms only as any semiautomatic weapon that holds more than 20 rounds or a shotgun that holds more than seven rounds — assault rifles, mostly, Van Cleave said. Regular six-shooters or pistols with nine- or 10-shot magazines are not “firearms” under this Virginia law.

Van Cleave said the gun owners might have been out celebrating a law that took effect July 1. Virginia statute 15.2-915 now completely prohibits any locality from enacting any regulations on gun ownership, carrying, storage or purchase, except for rules related to the workforce. Alexandria, for example, had an ordinance prohibiting openly carrying guns. It is now invalid, Van Cleave said.

“It’s like the Fourth of July,” Van Cleave said. “A whole new set of freedoms came in. . . . All local gun control is completely and totally gone.”

Legislators said they passed the bill to eliminate duplicative regulations, particularly in counties such as Fairfax, which imposed its own gun permit process in addition to the federally mandated background check.

Openly carrying weapons is “not a good idea,” said Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center in Washington. “This is the gun lobby’s vision of how America should be. Everybody’s packing heat and ready to engage in a shootout at the slightest provocation.”

Ricker said the gun owners “are probably doing their cause more harm than good by raising this issue. It raises an awareness and gives people who are more rational thinkers the opportunity to go to their legislators and make their views known.”