HB21 purports to impose ‘Standards of Responsible Conduct’ upon the firearms industry in Virginia. But a detailed read of the proposed bill shows that its ultimate impact will be to discourage new businesses from opening in Virginia, encourage existing industry members to flee the state, and to avoid serving those segments of the population deemed ‘high-risk’.
In short, this bill will have a chilling effect on an industry that serves to facilitate a fundamental right, the right to possess firearms for defense of self and home. It will even further impact the ability of those that live in poverty or high-crime areas since industry members are held to a nebulous standard of determining whether a given buyer is a ‘high-risk’ purchaser.
And all of these requirements are hazy at best, imposing potential criminal and civil liability that could bankrupt any industry member on a given day. It isn’t difficult to surmise that the real goal of the bill is not to serve the public but to have a chilling effect on the underlying 2nd Amendment rights of the customers served by the industry.
See the infographic below for a broad picture of what industry members will be facing if this bill is passed into law.
