A bill to ban the sale or transfer of assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and silencers was introduced during the 2023 legislative session in Virginia.
Introduced by Del. Dan Helmer (D-Fairfax), the bill if passed would also set a Jan. 1, 2024, deadline for outlawing the possession of high-capacity magazines and silencers.
“As a father of two boys in public school, a husband of a public school teacher, and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know that these weapons of war have no place on the streets of Virginia,” said Helmer. “This bill would create a commonsense framework that makes our communities safer while respecting Virginians’ Second Amendment rights.
Lori Haas, the advocacy manager at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the John Hopkins School of Public Health said that since the assault weapons ban expired in 2005, we have seen these “weapons of war” used to perpetrate some of the worst mass murders in American history including Hook Elementary, Pulse Nightclub, and a grocery store in Buffalo, just to name a few.
“High-capacity magazines are used to inflict as much bodily harm in as short an amount of time as possible, including the massacre at Virginia Tech that injured my daughter and killed 32 others,” said Haas. “It is far too late for too many, but long past time we remove these weapons of war from the streets of Virginia.”
The full text of the legislation can be found here.
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Crystal Graham
