Via David Codrea, Richard Black of the Virginia State Senate.

Liberals do not understand the National Guard.  These are citizen soldiers, and there are few effective tools for enforcing mass discipline. Democrats want the Virginia National Guard to enforce anti-gun laws by turning their rifles against the people.  The Guard will not do so.

Do Democrats really expect guardsmen to arrest recalcitrant deputy sheriffs and police officers?  Do they expect guardsmen to smash down doors and confiscate citizens’ guns? Fat chance.

Remember, the Virginia National Guard is sworn to uphold the U.S. and Virginia Constitutions.  And it is a complete defense if a soldier refuses to obey an unlawful or unconstitutional order.  Democrats are delusional if they think these guys will turn against their neighbors and violate their oaths.

Michael Bloomberg thinks he has crowned Ralph Northam the new King George. But Northam lacks the practical power to employ military force against Virginia.  The Guard is sensitive to the backlash they faced after firing on students at Kent State during the Vietnam War.  They won’t go through that ordeal again.

Here’s the way it works.  As long as the guard has the affection and public support of the people, they will follow orders.  But if Governor Northam turns armed troops against our citizens, the Guard will simply dissolve.

If Virginia’s citizen soldiers are ordered to turn their rifles on the people, they will refuse to do so.  The National Guard will not report for duty in order to march on the People. They will never turn their guns on law-abiding Virginians, no matter how much the Democrats want them to.

But they did during hurricane Katrina.  My FOIA request was was ignored (concerning who issued arming orders for the Louisiana National Guard), and as best as I’ve been able to determine, the National Guard accompanied the police when confiscations were conducted, the majority of the confiscations being done by mercenary cops (probably security consultants deputized on the spot).  But being there and doing nothing to stop it is as bad as doing it yourself.

He seems confident.  I’m not so confident.

Concerning the original post on Virginia House Bill No. 67, Mack sends this.

My analysis, brief though it may be, is that concerns about this bill are misplaced.

Lee Carted prefiled HB67 before the Sanctuary Movement really began (with the ‘We will not comply’ defiance).

Carter is a Progressive and a Labor activist. He’s part of the movement to repeal our great Right-to-work law.

It’s really been the VA FOP that’s been pushing this idea that’s it’s about cops.

Carter is spending a whole lot of time on his twitter feed on this:

Highlights:

* https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1206026332980858881

* https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1205939391383953408

* https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1205768229458763776

His twitter:

* https://twitter.com/carterforva

I asked for alternate interpretations of the bill, and this is one.  I find it an odd one, and beyond that, my first inclination is not to trust a collectivist.

Reading his Twitter posts carefully, he had an original proposed bill that read differently, and I located this.  Based on other Twitter posts, he makes the claim that he amended his bill because the republicans objected that his bill leaves the police able to go on strike.

So we are to believe that he wanted republican help with this bill when it’s not likely that a republican in Virginia would have ever voted for the bill in either its original or amended form.  Furthermore, he doesn’t need republican help in a democrat-controlled legislature.

But let’s assume for a moment that he’s telling the truth.  Go back and read his amended bill in light of his claims and tell me if the bill makes any sense at all.

It doesn’t to me.  I’ve read and interpreted state laws and the federal code for 38 years, and it reads like a chop job by someone in a hurry, leaving the final section (40.1-58.1) to muddle the issue.  With that last section, the proposed bill even seems to roll back in every other state employee as forbidden from striking.  I see no reason at all for this last section to be in the regulation given the other changes he’s made.

At any rate, you now have a different interpretation.  I find it dubious.  I’ve never seen such a mixed up regulation before.  The author is obviously an idiot, or he didn’t get a lawyer’s help with it.  Or perhaps both.

Virginia House Bill No. 67 is very interesting.

HOUSE BILL NO. 67Offered January 8, 2020Prefiled December 5, 2019A BILL to amend and reenact §§ 40.1-55 through 40.1-57.1 and 40.1-58.1 of the Code of Virginia, relating to strikes by certain government employees.

———-Patron– Carter———-Committee Referral Pending———-Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That §§ 40.1-55 through 40.1-57.1 and 40.1-58.1 of the Code of Virginia are amended and reenacted as follows:

§ 40.1-55. Public safety employee striking terminates, and becomes temporarily ineligible for, public employment.

A. As used in this article, “public safety employee” means any law-enforcement officer, as defined in § 9.1-500.

B. Any public safety employee of the Commonwealth, or of any county, city, town or other political subdivision thereof, or of any agency of any one of them, who, in concert with two or more other such employees, for the purpose of obstructing, impeding or suspending any activity or operation of his employing agency or any other governmental agency, strikes or willfully refuses to perform the duties of his employment shall, by such action, be deemed to have terminated his employment and shall thereafter be ineligible for employment in any position or capacity during the next twelve 12 months by the Commonwealth, or any county, city, town or other political subdivision of the Commonwealth, or by any department or agency of any of them.

§ 40.1-56. Department head, etc., to notify public safety employee of such termination, etc.

In any such case the head of any department of the state government, or the mayor of any city or town, or the chairman of the board of supervisors or other governing body of any county, or the head of any other such employing agency, in which such a public safety employee whose employment was terminated pursuant to § 40.1-55 was employed, shall forthwith notify such public safety employee of the fact of the termination of his employment and at the same time serve upon him in person or by registered mail a declaration of his ineligibility for reemployment as before provided. Such declaration shall state the fact upon which the asserted ineligibility is based.

§ 40.1-57. Appeal by public safety employee from declaration of ineligibility.

In the event that any such public safety employee whose employment was terminated pursuant to § 40.1-55 feels aggrieved by such declaration of ineligibility he may within ninety 90 days after the date thereof appeal to the circuit court of the county or the circuit court of the city in which he was employed by filing a petition therein for a review of the matters of law and fact involved in or pertinent to the declaration of ineligibility. A copy of the petition shall be served upon or sent by registered mail to the official signing the declaration, who may file an answer thereto within ten 10 days after receiving the same. The court or the judge thereof in vacation shall, as promptly as practicable, hear the appeal de novo and notify the employee and the signer of the declaration of ineligibility of the time and place of hearing. The court shall hear such testimony as may be adduced by the respective parties and render judgment in accordance with the law and the evidence. Such judgment shall be final.

§ 40.1-57.1. Appeal by employer for reemployment of terminated public safety employee.

Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, in the event that the employer of an individual terminated under this article deems it necessary for the protection of the public welfare that such individual be reemployed within the twelve 12 months following his termination, the employer may, within ninety 90 days after the date of the declaration of ineligibility, appeal to the circuit court of the county or the circuit court of the city in which the individual was employed by filing a petition therein setting forth the reasons why the public welfare requires reemployment. A copy of the petition shall be served upon or sent by registered mail to the former public safety employee, who may file an answer therein ten 10 days after receiving the same. The court or the judge thereof in vacation shall notify the employer and former public safety employee of the time and place of the hearing on the appeal, such hearing to be de novo and to be held as promptly as possible. The court shall hear such testimony as may be adduced by the respective parties and render judgment in accordance with the law and the evidence. Such judgment shall be final.

§ 40.1-58.1. Application of article to public employers and public safety employees.

As used in this article, the words, “person,” “persons,” “employer,” “employees,” “union,” “labor union,” “association,” “organization,” and “corporation” shall include but not be limited to public employers, public employees, and any representative of public employees in this the Commonwealth. The application of this article to public employers, public employees, and their representatives shall not be construed as modifying in any way the application of § 40.1-55 to government public safety employees as defined in such section.

To begin with our analysis, let’s make it clear that this reenacts an existing law, while also amending that existing law.  And just to make it clear (it’s a shame we have to do this, but in order to placate other bloggers who might get their panties all wadded up), there are strike-throughs, italics and existing laws that need to be fisked in order to understand what they’re proposing.

If one reads the existing law in 40.1-55, it currently says the following.

Any employee of the Commonwealth, or of any county, city, town or other political subdivision thereof, or of any agency of any one of them, who, in concert with two or more other such employees, for the purpose of obstructing, impeding or suspending any activity or operation of his employing agency or any other governmental agency, strikes or willfully refuses to perform the duties of his employment shall … [ bold mine].

This is being amended and reenacted (as I’ve said before, reenacting a law is slightly different than simply amending it) to read as follows, citing from above.

A. As used in this article, “public safety employee” means any law-enforcement officer, as defined in § 9.1-500.

B. Any public safety employee of the Commonwealth, or of any county, city, town or other political subdivision thereof, or of any agency of any one of them, who, in concert with two or more other such employees …

So it would appear that whereas the law once would have addressed striking state road workers, for instance, it now completely ignores them and other state employees to include only LEOs.  It now says “Any employee,” and the proposal is for it to say “Any public safety employee.”  This is defined as follows.

“Agency” means the Department of State Police, the Division of Capitol Police, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, the Virginia Port Authority, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, or the Department of Motor Vehicles; or the political subdivision or the campus police department of any public institution of higher education of the Commonwealth employing the law-enforcement officer.

“Law-enforcement officer” means any person, other than a Chief of Police or the Superintendent of the Department of State Police, who, in his official capacity, is (i) authorized by law to make arrests and (ii) a nonprobationary officer of one of the following agencies:

a. The Department of State Police, the Division of Capitol Police, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, the Virginia Port Authority, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the Department of Conservation and Recreation;

b. The police department, bureau or force of any political subdivision or the campus police department of any public institution of higher education of the Commonwealth where such department, bureau or force has three or more law-enforcement officers; or

c. Any conservation police officer as defined in § 9.1-101.

For the purposes of this chapter, “law-enforcement officer” shall not include the sheriff’s department of any city or county.

This definition includes all state police, but excludes Sheriff’s departments and their deputies, perhaps because they know there is no legal basis for such an inclusion.

In any case, they appear to be frenetically searching for ways to say to their state police, “You’ll enforce our new laws, and if you don’t, we’ll take your job and future pensions away from you.”

As always, I could be wrong about this interpretation.  Feel free to weigh in with comments, but until persuaded otherwise, they appear by this bill to be attempting to criminalize failure of state police agents to implement new firearms regulation, up to and including confiscatory orders.  You try to get another job with “willful refusal to perform the duties of employment” on your resume.

In this case I’d be all too happy to have that conversation with prospective employers in Virginia.  Then again, men with families will be much less flexible.  Moral considerations will need to outweigh practical considerations, and I don’t hold out much hope of that calculus giving a good outcome with many LEOs who are agents of the state rather than deputies in counties.

If you have a different interpretation of this bill, weigh in with comments.

UPDATE: More On House Bill No. 67.

More perspective from Virginia.

A wave of resolutions have been passed in Virginia counties, declaring sanctuaries and constitutional havens in support of the Second Amendment as a new Democratic majority prepares to take over the state General Assembly in January.

But what do they really mean?

“I think it’s a form of political protest,” said Richard Schragger, Perre Bowen professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. “Obviously, it’s caught a certain amount of fire in Virginia.”

This week, Prince William and Spotsylvania counties became some of the latest to pass resolutions affirming their commitment to residents’ rights to keep and carry guns.

In the end, Prince William’s resolution may be short-lived and is likely to be reversed when a new board of supervisors led by Democrats takes control in the county, according to a statement from incoming supervisor Ann Wheeler that was made days before that vote.

Fauquier County seems poised to pass its own resolution in support of gun rights in the coming days. After a public comment period that lasted more than four hours Thursday night and amid concerns about the resolution’s wording, the county’s board decided to delay the vote on their resolution in support of Second Amendment rights until Dec. 23.

“I think there’s a lot of, maybe, misunderstandings about what the impact of these statements, these resolutions that are being adopted, will do,” said Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. “They are nothing more than position statements. They don’t have the force of law.”

[ … ]

Professor Schragger said that if gun laws that may be perceived as over restrictive of gun rights do pass, “those laws are enforced and citizens have to abide by them.”

“There’s no ability for citizens in any of these Second Amendment sanctuaries to assert that they don’t have to comply with state law,” Schragger said.

“The sheriffs and local officers have to comply with state law, and the state police will enforce state law,” Schragger added.

We’ve met up with professor Schragger before.  Do you think he might be a wee bit biased in his analysis?

So any levelheaded analysis would have concluded that the Sheriff is elected by the people of the county, and is not a state employee.  Any levelheaded analysis would have also concluded that county commissioners can make laws just like state lawmakers.  What they’ve done is indeed make a law.

And any levelheaded analysis would have concluded that the notion that “if we make laws they must be obeyed” is preposterous given that these very same laws in Connecticut and New York were roundly ignored by the citizens of those states.

The entire paradigm of the folks making these statements is different (and directly contrary) to the existing paradigm in place today in the counties voting these resolutions.  Mr. Schragger’s thinking is confused, outdated, outmoded and lacks a critical and legitimate understanding of where we are in America today.

The citizens have guns.  Millions of them.  The citizens have ammunition.  Billions of rounds of it. Mr. Schragger would do well to let that sink in for a while.  I’ll say it again.  The 2A laws made in the counties have exactly as much power and legitimacy as the people of the counties are willing to give them, and the force with which they are willing to defend them, not one ounce more, and not one ounce less.

Via WRSA.

Necessary viewing.  I’m delighted to see Matt use our Ralph “Kill The Babies Give Me All Your Guns” meme, three times.

Matt is also concerned about a false flag event, as am I.  I’ve already told you, and have made it ready for linking and reference.

Via Virginia reporter Mack, this bit of interesting analysis.

This is all a pregnant bit of prose and requires some unpacking.  Richard Schragger, a law professor at the University of Virginia, has misled the reporter and the readers.  It’s all quite a bit more complicated than that, and he knows it.

His analysis is similar in import to the one today by a member of the Virginia legislature, David Toscano, written at Slate.

Conservatives have railed for years against so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, criticizing localities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration policies they deem heartless and ineffective. In the past year, however, some conservative lawmakers have taken a page from the progressive playbook, employing sanctuary imagery in opposition to gun safety legislation they deem to be an unconstitutional restriction of their rights under the Second Amendment.

The two approaches are classic cases of false equivalency. Jurisdictions that proclaim themselves sanctuaries for immigrants do not seek to violate the law; they simply refuse to engage local law enforcement in supporting actions that are federal responsibilities. They do not block the law, but simply insist that it should be enforced by those who have the responsibility to do so. For some proponents of so-called gun sanctuaries, however, the goal is to prevent enforcement of state law that the jurisdiction (not a court) deems unconstitutional.

Oh.  Is that the way it works?  Well then.  I guess Reuters is wrong to point out that “Sanctuary cities are those where local officials decline to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.”  Yes, in fact, that’s exactly what an illegal alien sanctuary city is.

Professor Schragger, a little digging shows, absolutely hates preemption (this link also works).  You see, he wants cities and towns to be able to levy taxes, impose regulations and do all sorts of things not granted authority by the state.  He calls preemption an “an attack on American cities.”  As long as the tilt is towards more and more regulation, he’s okay with it all.  If cities seek to ignore state law, he’s not.

So by attempting to pose a quick defeater argument for the equivalence between illegal alien sanctuary cities and 2A cities and counties, both authors have introduced more problems to deal with.  The most significant illegal alien sanctuary city case Trump has won merely allowed the FedGov to “give preferential treatment in awarding community policing grants to cities that cooperate with immigration authorities.”  That’s it.  That’s the sum total of the judicial victory.

So what Toscano and Schragger have done is pose a defeater, and hope that you didn’t dig to find the details enough to see that their argument fails, and does so miserably.  Their attempt at defeating the “false equivalence” ends up showing the similarity, and yet they still dislike state attempts at preemption on illegal alien sanctuaries, and like it for 2A sanctuaries.

They’ve done nothing more than restate their own axiomatic irreducibles, or presuppositions.  They both bias towards so-called progressive views, while denying the right of others to invoke those same tools for their own uses.  But the law is the result of these philosophic pre-commitments, not the source of them.  Philosophic pre-commitments come first, not last.  The law comes last, not first.

We do the very same thing, recognizing that our own pre-commitments are not theirs.  The fundamental divide has nothing to do with the law, per se.  It has to do with the polarization of America, which not just continues unabated, but is accelerating.  We dislike preemption when it comes to preservation of our 2A rights, and like it when it comes to illegal alien sanctuary cities.  These views have to do with preservation of certain God-given rights, tendency in the Latino voters to undermine those rights, and other issues too involved to fisk at the moment.

Again, philosophic pre-commitments govern the outcome of the debate, not the law, the law being the result of the debate.  That’s why judge-shopping is so in vogue with the progressives.  Philosophic pre-commitments can change your view of everything, not least of which is how mankind should be governed.

But that doesn’t end the issues with the analysis above.  Professor Schragger has oversimplified the issue when he discusses failing to remove weapons from a citizen and that weapon being used in a crime, leading to culpability and liability by the LEO.  Does the professor think that LEOs are going to log in weapons owners, along with the respective serial numbers of all firearms, make permanent records searchable by NICS or some other means (i.e., a registry), and make them available for future use by law enforcement?  Form 4473 isn’t a registration, and firearms can be sold to others in person-to-person transfers.  Having your information on Form 4473 proves nothing concerning present ownership of a firearm.  What tool does professor Schragger think will be used for this draconian scheme of culpability?  He posits all sorts of wet dreams for controllers, but has no idea how this all functions in real time and space.

Piling problem on top of problem, professor Schragger knows, or at least he should know, that LEOs bear no responsibility whatsoever for the protection of the public.  We’ve seen that from the doctrines established in Castle Rock versus Gonzalez and Warren versus the District of Columbia.  No LEO will stand trial for failing to confiscate a weapon because of it being used later in a crime.  That’s a preposterous notion, a sophomoric pretension suitable only for scare-tactics.

As to the extent of efficacy of these ordinances and resolutions, that’s an open question and both of the authors know it.  Sheriffs may lose their nerve, individuals may not find support among neighbors, and militias may fall apart.  My bet is against this.

Sheriffs may arrest state agents for enforcing new gun control laws.  Sheriffs can be thrown out of office and new ones elected.  Militias may end up forming road blocks and preventing state agents from enforcing any new laws.  Firearms will be purchased across state lines and from person-to-person.  Existing firearms will not go away, and most assuredly will never be registered in a state registry.  The compliance rate for these kinds of laws in New York and Connecticut was virtually non-existent, and Virginia isn’t Connecticut.

What I’m certain of, however, is that state agents and politicians of Virginia have absolutely no idea what’s coming, and presume the wrong things about the people of Virginia.  Pollyanna analyses like that from professor Schragger are misleading, and a much better gauge of what this will look like is knowing the people of Virginia.

In summary, 2A ordinances and resolutions have exactly as much teeth as the people of Virginia and their willingness to oppose new laws – not one ounce more, and not one ounce less, the professor and the politician notwithstanding.

Via David Codrea, the city of Chesapeake.

One quick comment about this article.  “One Chesapeake high school student said residents did not need to use AR-15 assault rifles to protect themselves, drawing some boos from the crowd.”

I told you before, and will reiterate here.  This isn’t about bolt action hunting rifles or the danger deer and feral hogs pose.  This meeting included robust defense of AR-15s and similar firearms.  Virginians won’t give them up, and they won’t register them.  I know the people of Virginia.

More pictures from Chesapeake.

Prince William County.

Via Ammoland, Bedford County.

As readers in Virginia gain intel, send our way as you see fit.

Via WiscoDave, sure they did.

Virginia Democratic leaders abandoned their gun confiscation proposal Monday following a grassroots outpouring of opposition to gun control across the state.

Governor Ralph Northam (D.) and incoming Senate majority leader Dick Saslaw (D.) said they will no longer pursue their marquee plan to ban the possession of “assault weapons.” Instead, they will include a provision to allow Virginians to keep the firearms they already own. The reversal comes before the newly elected Democratic majority has even been sworn in, after a majority of the state’s counties declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”

“In this case, the governor’s assault weapons ban will include a grandfather clause for individuals who already own assault weapons, with the requirement they register their weapons before the end of a designated grace period,” Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky told the Virginia Mercury.

It’s being presented in an interesting way, with an interesting lede, yes?  Dems have caved, while demanding registration.

David Codrea remarks, “So not being able to buy new ones and having to register old ones is being presented as a “win”?”

I would remind readers what the controllers really want.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it:

The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them. Canada has a national firearms registry. We need to copy their model. We need a law demanding all firearms be registered to a national database. We need to know who has them and where they are. We need to make this as easy as possible for gun owners. The federal government provides the money and technical expertise, and the State police carry it out. Like a funded mandate. Most firearms already have a serial number on them, so it would really be a matter of taking the information already on the ATF form 4473 and putting it in a national database. I think about 6 months should be enough time.

Along with this, make private sales illegal. When a firearm is transferred, make it law that the registration must be updated. Again, make it super easy to do. Perhaps over, the internet. Dealers can log in by their FFLs and update the registration. Additionally, new guns are to be registered by the manufacturer. The object here is to create a clear paper trail from factory to distributor to dealer to owner. We want to encourage as much voluntary compliance as possible.

Now we get down to it. The registration period has passed. Now we have criminals without registered guns running around. Probably kooky types that “lost” them on a boat or something. So remember those ATF form 4473s? Those record every firearm sale, going back twenty years. And those have to be surrendered to the ATF on demand. So, we get those logbooks, and cross reference the names and addresses with the new national registry. Since most NRA types own two or (many) more guns, we can get an idea of who properly registered their guns and who didn’t. For example, if we have a guy who purchased 6 guns over the course of 10 years, but only registered two of them, that raises a red flag.

Now, maybe he sold them or they got lost or something. But it gives us a good target for investigation. A nice visit by the ATF or state police to find out if he really does still have those guns would be certainly warranted.

The boys in Virginia know all of this.  They will NOT register their firearms with anyone, FedGov or state.  Noncompliance will be near 100%.  They are going to have to make a difficult decision when the first person, otherwise peaceable, is on trial for owning an AR-15.

They can stand idly by and watch, thankful it isn’t them, or they can set up road blocks and surround his home with patriots to prevent the enforcement of the law, raising and aiming rifles if needed.

Time will tell which path they choose.