Friday, March 05, 2010
Senate subcommittee votes down handgun bill
A panel dominated by Democrats rejected a bill to lift a limit on handgun purchases.
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RICHMOND -- A hastily formed Senate subcommittee voted Thursday to defeat legislation that would repeal Virginia's one-handgun-per-month law, likely killing the proposal for the year.
The Democrat-dominated panel took the extraordinary step of voting down several pro-gun bills that had been passed by the Republican-run House of Delegates, keeping the bills from getting a hearing in the full Senate Courts of Justice Committee. The committee's chairman, Sen. Henry Marsh, D-Richmond, said he won't put the bills on the full committee's docket when it holds its final scheduled meeting Monday.
Marsh appointed the five-member subcommittee just Monday, stacking it with Democrats who favor gun control. Marsh said he formed the panel because the full committee already had devoted significant time to gun legislation this year.
Republicans and gun rights advocates said Marsh's move was an end run around the full Courts of Justice Committee, where bills could have picked up support from pro-gun Democrats.
"I think in my alert I will call this The Ides of Marsh," said Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, musing about the headline he would put on his electronic newsletter.
While Marsh declared the rejected bills dead Thursday, one Republican senator did not rule out making an effort to revive them in the full committee.
"I don't think it's the end of the road for these bills," said Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg.
Senate subcommittees typically don't kill legislation and merely make recommendations to full committees. Senators have grumbled about established House of Delegates rules that enable House subcommittees to effectively kill bills, including measures passed by the Senate.
By the end of Thursday's meeting, the Senate subcommittee was voting down bills with as few as two members in the room. Absent senators left proxies to record their votes. Sen. Frederick Quayle of Suffolk was the only Republican on the subcommittee.
The Marsh-appointed subcommittee voted 4-1 against a bill (House Bill 49) that would repeal Virginia's law limiting handgun purchases to one per month. The 1993 law was a signature initiative of former Gov. Doug Wilder, who pushed it as a means of reducing illegal gun trafficking.
The subcommittee also rejected a bill that would exempt firearms and ammunition made and used in Virginia from federal laws. House Bill 69, sponsored by Del. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson County, has been embraced by 10th Amendment advocates who criticize the reach of the federal government.
But gun rights advocates have still scored victories in this session. Both houses have passed legislation that would allow gun owners with permits to take concealed handguns into restaurants that serve alcohol. They also have passed a bill that would let individuals without concealed carry permits store firearms in locked vehicle compartments.
Other bills defeated by the subcommittee Thursday included a measure that would deny public access to concealed carry permit records kept by local circuit courts. And it rejected a bill that would require localities with gun buy-back programs to resell the weapons to licensed firearms dealers rather than destroy them.
