One-Gun Law Endangered in the House

The one-gun-a-month limit on the purchase of handguns was a legislative triumph in 1993 of then-Gov. Douglas Wilder. It was enacted as gun homicide rates soared in Richmond and as the state gained a reputation as an East Coast armory for violent criminals.

But Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge, has persuaded the Republican majority in the House of Delegates that the law has outlived its usefulness.

And his colleagues are buying the argument. That’s sad.

It will remain for the Senate of Virginia to reject this careless piece of legislation that can only do harm by increasing the number of guns on the streets of Virginia’s cities.

During debate in 1993 when the limit was put in place, gun dealers admitted that multiple sales of guns on a daily or weekly basis were creating a problem for police in other jurisdictions. They also acknowledged the hypocrisy of putting individual rights and the profit motive ahead of concern for public safety.

In debate this year in the House, Andrew Goddard told the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety — a committee, by the way, that has never met a pro-gun bill it did not like — that the one-gun-a-month law had been credited with reducing Virginia’s role in illegal gun-trafficking on the East Coast.

Before the law was approved, Virginia ranked first in illegal guns moving up and down Interstate 95. Afterward, he said, it dropped to sixth. Goddard is a gun-control activist whose child was injured in the 2007 shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.

The father told the panel that repealing the ban would make it easier for criminals to buy guns through straw purchases in which felons get other people to buy weapons for them.

“If a person can walk out with a box full of Glocks, they are going to walk out onto the street and sell them,” Goddard said.

On the House floor, where the measure moved along toward its final approval on Tuesday, Del. Joseph Morrissey, D-Henrico, raised the issue of why anyone would need to buy more than one pistol a month. “Right now you can buy up to 12 guns a year — an unlimited number of firearms, a huge arsenal. And we all know that gunrunning is real,” said the former Richmond prosecutor.

“We have been successful in the city of Richmond by reducing homicides by guns and right now we are unraveling almost two decades of progress,” he argued.

Wilder has steadfastly contended that no one needs to buy more than one gun a month. As recently as this past fall, he said, “In my conversations with people across the state, I have not encountered anyone who has listed as their priority the need for them to have more handguns.”

But that argument appears to be irrelevant in this year’s gun-happy House of Delegates.

The only hope for derailing this unnecessary legislation lies with the Senate. Will it side with the gun lobby for whom there are never enough guns?

Or will it lean on common sense and uphold the ban on buying more than one handgun a month?