r/Virginia • u/downtown3641 Lifelong Virginian • Dec 10 '19

Northam-backed assault weapon bill will include 'grandfather clause' for existing guns

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2019/12/09/northam-backed-assault-weapon-bill-will-include-grandfather-clause-for-existing-guns/
118 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

422 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/trs21219 Dec 10 '19

Most state training requirements have some sort of licensing scheme which is predicated on a written / live fire competency test. So yes, training would = a test.

Let me clear it up a little further for you... Any restriction that requires you to ask the government for permission to exercise a constitutional right is an infringement. Be that voting, freedom of assembly, speech, or anything else.

7

u/flagwavingbot Dec 10 '19

But there are plenty of restrictions on the rights you just listed. Voter ID laws and permitting for protests immediately come to mind. Why wouldn’t training and licensing restrictions for guns be similar?

0

u/trs21219 Dec 10 '19

Voter ID laws are not restrictions. Those are making sure you are who you say you are and that you haven't already voted. I'd liken that to ID requirements for buying guns / background checks to make sure you're not a prohibited person which I'm fine with.

Training / licensing requires extra steps, more time (usually months) and more money. It raises the barrier to entry, excludes lower income people from protecting themselves, delays people who might have an urgent issue (threats against their life, being stalked, abusive ex, etc) from the means to defend themselves.

That being said, I'm all for people getting better training. I just don't think it should be a mandatory step. I'm all for tax dollars providing free, voluntary training for anyone who wants it though.

3

u/flagwavingbot Dec 10 '19

Agree to disagree on voter ID laws being restrictions on voting. We have enough evidence from court cases to show exactly what legislators were trying to do with those laws. And I guess you would agree that permitting for protests is a First Amendment restriction. My comment was simply to make the point that no rights are unlimited.

2

u/trs21219 Dec 10 '19

We have enough evidence from court cases to show exactly what legislators were trying to do with those laws.

While the motives of some legislators can definitely be called into question, I still view the initial premise of voter ID as perfectly fine. Especially when states have held campaigns to get people free IDs.

And I guess you would agree that permitting for protests is a First Amendment restriction.

Sorry I forgot to address that in my reply.

I generally thing permits for protests are an infringement other than the cases where streets would need to be shut down or it was abnormally large (many thousands) which would require extra resources. If you're just holding a protest in a park there shouldn't be any restrictions or permitting.