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Virginia Beach Shooting Leads Governor to Call Special Session on Gun Violence After Another Mass Shooting, Another Virginia Governor Tries to Change Gun Laws
(about 7 hours later)
Citing the shooting in Virginia Beach in which 12 people were killed, “as well as the tragedies that happen every day across Virginia,” Gov. Ralph Northam on Tuesday called for a special session of the General Assembly to vote on gun control bills. After a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, a bill to require mandatory background checks for arms purchases at gun shows failed to make it out of committee in the Virginia State Senate. It was blocked by all of the Republicans on the committee and two Democrats, who controlled the chamber at the time.
The governor listed a number of measures he intended to propose, including universal background checks and a requirement that people report lost or stolen firearms. Those ideas were floated in the past but died in committee before reaching the floor of the Legislature. Now, more than a decade later, and after a gunman killed 12 people in Virginia Beach last week, a similar background check bill is being proposed as part of a package of legislation to be considered in a special session, which Gov. Ralph Northam called for on Tuesday.
And State Senator John S. Edwards, a rural district Democrat who helped stop that bill in 2008, has a different read today.
“I think we’re ready,” he said.
The politics around guns have changed in recent years, recast by a burst of student activism, deep-pocketed allies and a steady dirge of grim headlines from schools, churches, concerts — and now a Virginia Beach municipal building. A major test of the current political temperature will come with the coming special session in Virginia, a rapidly suburbanizing state that has seen striking partisan changes. The longtime headquarters of the National Rifle Association sits in a county, Fairfax, that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 by more than 36 points.
“This is a prime place to see how the politics of the issue of gun safety have shifted so significantly,” said Robin Lloyd, the managing director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, an advocacy organization.
The shift was seen starkly last year across state legislatures, which passed nearly 70 gun control measures, many in the immediate aftermath of the high school shooting in Parkland, Fla. The Parkland shooting took place in February 2018, when legislatures were already meeting and could act quickly; Mr. Northam’s decision to call the special session — in a year in which all of Virginia’s legislative seats are up for election — was an even clearer sign of the direction of political winds.
“Basically all the Democrats who run now, they run using gun safety as an offensive issue,” said United States Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who was governor at the time of the Virginia Tech shooting. Mr. Kaine said that Democrats running for statewide office back then were on defense when it came to gun issues.
When he called on Tuesday for the special session, Mr. Northam, who has been under fire for a scandal involving a racist photograph, spoke both of the Virginia Tech shooting and the shooting last week in Virginia Beach, in which a former city employee killed a dozen people in the city’s municipal center before being mortally wounded in a shootout with the police.
[Virginia Beach authorities have maintained near-silence about the gunman’s identity. Here’s why.]
Mr. Northam listed a number of measures he intended to propose at the session, which an aide said was planned for sometime this month. Those measures include universal background checks; a requirement that people report lost or stolen firearms; the reinstatement of a law, repealed in 2012, that would limit handgun purchases to one a month; and a ban on so-called assault weapons and related devices, including sound suppressors like the one used — and bought legally — by the gunman in Virginia Beach.
Similar bills have been proposed before, most of them before the recent legislative session, but died in Republican-controlled committees before reaching the floor of the Legislature. Republicans hold a slim majority in both houses.
This time, the governor said, he was demanding that the measures be put to a vote by the entire General Assembly.This time, the governor said, he was demanding that the measures be put to a vote by the entire General Assembly.
“I will be asking for votes and laws, not thoughts and prayers,” Mr. Northam said.“I will be asking for votes and laws, not thoughts and prayers,” Mr. Northam said.
On Friday, a city engineer who had resigned earlier that day stormed the Virginia Beach municipal complex and killed 11 of his former colleagues, along with a contractor who was seeing about a permit. The gunman was killed in a shootout with police officers. In a statement, the National Rifle Association said that “none of the governor’s gun control proposals would have prevented the horrible tragedy at Virginia Beach,” and that he should focus on mental health issues and prosecuting violent criminals instead.
[Virginia Beach authorities have maintained near-silence about the gunman’s identity. Here’s why.] The likelihood that all or even most of the measures Mr. Northam has proposed would pass is slim, given that Republicans control both houses, if only barely. But political observers suggested that the changing politics of gun control could work in favor of state Democrats in the next election, as they try to overcome a series of scandals.
“It is right to respond to this tragedy with decisive action,” added Mr. Northam, a Democrat. “Let Virginia set an example for the nation that we can respond to tragedy with action.”
In a statement, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Kirk Cox, a Republican, called the governor’s request for a special session “hasty and suspect when considered against the backdrop of the last few months,” apparently referring to a scandal in which Mr. Northam gave conflicting accounts about appearing in blackface when he was younger, then responded to widespread calls for his resignation by pledging to focus on issues of inequity.
Mr. Cox said that at a special session, Republican lawmakers would address gun violence “by holding criminals accountable with tougher sentences — including mandatory minimums,” rather than “infringing on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”
Mr. Northam just last month pledged not to sign another mandatory minimum bill as governor after vetoing two such bills and writing in an op-ed that “mandatory minimums are disproportionately harming people and communities of color.”
All seats in the Virginia legislature are on the ballot in November. Republicans hold slim majorities in both houses.
A 2017 Quinnipiac poll showed that a slim majority of voters in Virginia supported stricter gun control laws in general, while an overwhelming majority — 91 percent — supported universal background checks.A 2017 Quinnipiac poll showed that a slim majority of voters in Virginia supported stricter gun control laws in general, while an overwhelming majority — 91 percent — supported universal background checks.
Among the other measures that Mr. Northam outlined in his speech on Tuesday were protective orders that would give the authorities the ability to remove guns from people deemed a serious risk; a ban on so-called assault weapons, including sound suppressors and bump stocks; and reinstating a law, repealed in 2012, that would limit handgun purchases to one a month. “This is how the politics of Virginia have changed so dramatically in just a few years,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. “For decades, any Democrat who talked about tightening the rules on guns was taking a big political risk. The risk in 2019, in the wake of the tragedy of Virginia Beach, would be borne by Republicans.”
Many Democrats immediately welcomed the governor’s announcement. Cheryl B. Turpin, who represents part of Virginia Beach in the House of Delegates, said in a statement that she had called for such measures nearly a year and a half ago. In a statement, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Kirk Cox, a Republican, said that at the special session, Republican lawmakers would address gun violence “by holding criminals accountable with tougher sentences — including mandatory minimums,” rather than “infringing on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”
“Now I have two grieving families in my backyard and many more affected by the trauma of this tragedy,” she said. “We cannot wait, we were elected to protect our communities.” But Mr. Northam just last month pledged not to sign legislation that would impose minimum sentences for convictions after vetoing two such bills and writing in an op-ed that “mandatory minimums are disproportionately harming people and communities of color.”
Justin Fairfax, the state’s lieutenant governor, stood alongside the governor on Tuesday morning, as did the state attorney general, Mark Herring. This was their first appearance together since February, when all three became bogged down in a succession of scandals — Mr. Fairfax facing accusations of sexual assault, which he denied, and Mr. Herring admitting that he had worn blackface to a party in college. Mr. Cox called the timing of the special session “hasty and suspect when considered against the backdrop of the last few months.” The state Republican Party was more direct, accusing Mr. Northam in a statement of trying to “take advantage of this tragedy to try and boost his own disgraced image.”
Both spoke in support of the governor’s plan. In early February, Mr. Northam gave conflicting accounts about appearing in blackface when he was younger, then responded to widespread calls for his resignation by pledging to focus on issues of inequity. Within days, Justin Fairfax, the state’s lieutenant governor, was accused by two women of sexual assault, and Mark Herring, the state attorney general, admitted that he wore blackface to a party in college.
“It is one of the callings of our time, and we must rise to this moment in our history,” Mr. Fairfax said. The three stood together on Tuesday to call for the special session. It was their first public appearance together since all of the scandals surfaced, which perhaps attests to the new political power of gun control.
Republicans had seen those scandals as lifelines as they fought to hold onto their narrowest of legislative majorities this year. Now, with gun issues in the spotlight, political observers on both sides of the issue see the Republicans as facing the most political danger.
The question of whether this political calculation is right, and how much this state has really changed, will be settled soon.
“They’re forgetting about what they call the silent majority,” said Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group. “There’s an election in November, and I imagine this will have real consequences.”
That hope is shared by Shelly Simonds, a school board member in Newport News, Va., not far from Virginia Beach. Last January, Ms. Simonds, a Democrat, tied her Republican opponent, David Yancey, in a race for the House of Delegates. She lost the seat — and the chances for a Democratic House — in a tiebreaker, when a state election official pulled Mr. Yancey’s name out of a bowl.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” Ms. Simonds said of the prospect of putting gun control measures up before the entire House of Delegates, including Mr. Yancey, whom she is running against again. “I can’t wait to find out how he votes.”