Virginia Church Self Defense Ban

Virginia has fairly decent laws regarding the carrying of firearms for self defense. Other than needing to pay a tax in order to exercise your 2nd Amendment right, it's moderately easy to get a VA Concealed Handgun Permit. However, according to some on the left, your right of self defense is abrogated if you happen to be praying at the time the need arises. These are the same mental midgets who claim that school "gun free zones" prevent school shootings. The Virginia Citizens Defense League is taking on the ridiculous prohibition on carrying a gun during a religious service.

We need to repeal the Jim Crow era Blue-law that forbids a person from having a weapon **in a place of worship, during a service.** (18.2-283).

While the General Assembly is not currently in session, and won't be in session again until January, we can use this time to build up steam for the repeal next year!

ACTION ITEM #1

Starting NOW, and for the rest of the year, we need to be educating faith leaders, and the public, about the church-service weapon ban and to get as many people as we can onboard in helping us to accomplish the repeal. It would be great to flood the Governor and the General Assembly with phone calls, emails, and letters all summer long. (VCDL will also be distributing postcards to the Governor at gun shows all year.)

Don't assume that faith leaders and your friends haven't fallen for the other side's lie that repealing 18.2-283 negates any church leader's right to make decisions about guns on their property. To win this we need to educate as many people as we can to the facts and truth.

To that extent, I have a copy of a letter from Delegate Dave LaRock, who put in the 18.2-283 repeal bill for VCDL earlier this year. His letter, and my cover letter, can be printed out and handed to faith leaders or distributed to your fellow worshipers, friends, family, and coworkers. The link to the letter can also be emailed instead:

https://vcdl.org/resources/pdf/2018_03_02_Church_Service_Ban_Letter.pdf

ACTION ITEM #2

Here's VCDL's webpage on the repeal, with ACTION ITEMS for contacting the Governor and the General Assembly:

https://vcdl.org/repeal_church_ban

Although a former VA Attorney General posited that self-defense was a legitimate reason for being armed in a church, the legal question is far from settled. Bad things happen in church too. The doors of your church are not talisman against violence. It is foolhardy to not be prepared.

Share this with your priest, your pastor, your rabbi and any other religious leaders and friends.