Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Far-left Virginia Democrat Governor Ralph Northam announced this week that he will aggressively work to implement extreme anti-gun laws in the state now that Democrats control the state, including confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens.
During a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Northam “mentioned universal background checks, banning the sale of [semi-automatic firearms] and high-capacity magazines, restoring the law that limits purchases to one gun a month, and a red flag law that would empower a court to temporarily remove a gun from a person deemed to be a risk to himself or others,” The Washington Post reported.
“We will at least start with those,” Northam said.
When asked about confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens, Northam responded “that’s something I’m working [on] with our secretary of public safety,” adding that he will work with anti-gun activists on the issue.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that during the recent election, Democrat candidates were silent on whether they supported Northam’s extreme gun confiscation plan. The Free Beacon reports:
Gun confiscation and other gun control measures have been part of Northam’s agenda, but took on increased importance after a picture of two men, one in blackface and the other in KKK robes, was uncovered on Northam’s page in a medical school yearbook. In his first major public appearance after the scandal broke, Northam called for a special session of the legislature in order to reconsider his gun control package, following the recent strategy used by prominent liberals of pivoting to gun control after brushes with controversy.
Democrats have a strong incentive, in the form of millions in dark money, to implement new gun control laws. In each of the last three election cycles, Everytown for Gun Safety—backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg—and other gun control groups have spent large sums of money backing Democrats. Everytown spent $2.5 million to help push Democrats into the majority in Virginia, while the National Rifle Association spent just $300,000 supporting Republicans, according to CNBC.
Northam is not the only leftist politician who has used the issue of control to distract from a racist blackface scandal.
On September 18, TIME reported that left-wing Canadian leader Justin Trudeau had appeared in numerous racist blackface photos, a scandal that nearly cost him his elected office.
However, just two days after the scandal broke, Trudeau immediately pivoted to pushing for far-left gun control policies, including banning handguns.
Trudeau tweeted, “Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We will ban all military-style assault rifles, give municipalities the ability to restrict or ban handguns, and strengthen gun control.”
On Thursday, it was reported that Bloomberg was preparing to run for president in 2020 after seeing Joe Biden’s campaign falter.
A New York Times analysis of Bloomberg’s gun control views from a few years ago found that his views are far outside anything that is considered to be mainstream:
His flagship bill is New York Senator Charles Schumer’s “Fix Gun Checks Act.” The proposal follows model language from Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” campaign. According to my analysis of the bill, this version of background checks would outlaw loaning a firearm to one’s spouse or sibling for two weeks. Or sharing a firearm on one’s property — such was target shooting with a guest, or loaning a gun to a ranch hand. And sharing guns while target shooting on federal land where it is allowed, such as on National Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management property.
The bill would felonize a couple who are not legally married, but who share firearms at a target range. Or a member of the Army Reserve who is summoned to overseas deployment, and who stored personal guns with a sibling or a trusted friend. Also criminalized is the friend who lends a gun to a stalking victim for a few days.
John Tkazyik, former Mayor of Poughkeepsie in New York, belonged to one of Bloomberg’s gun control groups until he realized how extreme the group was and that their goal was to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens. Tkazyik wrote in 2014:
I’m no longer a member of [Mayors Against Illegal Guns]. Why? Just as Ronald Reagan said of the Democratic Party, it left me. And I’m not alone: Nearly 50 pro-Second Amendment mayors have left the organization. They left for the same reason I did. MAIG became a vehicle for Bloomberg to promote his personal gun-control agenda — violating the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and taking resources away from initiatives that could actually work to protect our neighborhoods and save precious lives. Gun control will actually make a bad situation worse.
…
It did not take long to realize that MAIG’s agenda was much more than ridding felons of illegal guns; that under the guise of helping mayors facing a crime and drug epidemic, MAIG intended to promote confiscation of guns from law-abiding citizens. I don’t believe, never have believed and never will believe that public safety is enhanced by encroaching on our right to bear arms, and I will not be a part of any organization that does. [emphasis added]