Ban on sales of assault weapons advances in Va.

Capitol Police clear committee room after angry reaction to vote.

RICHMOND, VA. — A bill banning the sale of assault-style weapons and possession of high-capacity magazines cleared a Virginia House committee Friday, drawing such an angry reaction from gun rights activists that the chairman had Capitol Police clear the room.

Sponsored by Del. Mark Levine, D-Alexandria, the measure would prohibit the sale or transfer of those firearms beginning July 1, and outlaw possession of the magazines six months later, on Jan. 1, 2021.

The legislation initially would have banned all possession of assault weapons, forcing owners to give them up. But the House Public Safety Committee modified it to prohibit only sales and transfers.

Anyone who legally owned those guns before the law took effect would be allowed to keep them.

The measure takes a harder line on magazines that hold more than 12 rounds and on bump stocks, banning their sale and possession. Bump stocks, attachments that make a gun fire more rapidly, are already subject to a federal ban.

The bill is perhaps the most controversial part of an eight-bill package of gun-control legislation that Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, backed after a shooter killed 12 people in a Virginia Beach municipal building on May 31.

The possibility of an assault weapons ban sparked fears across Virginia that newly empowered Democrats, who won majorities in both the House and the Senate last fall, were planning to confiscate guns.

“As an army doctor, Governor Northam has seen firsthand what weapons of war do to a human body,” his spokeswoman, Alena

Yarmosky, said in a statement. “This bill will save lives in Virginia, and the Governor is glad to see it advance.”

Democrats won their majorities on a promise to enact sweeping gun control, including universal background checks and a purchase limit of one handgun a month.

Since the election, more than 110 Virginia counties have passed some type of “Second Amendment sanctuary” resolution, many of them asserting that officials will not enforce laws they consider unconstitutional. Gun rights activists staged an enormous rally on Capitol Square last month, drawing heavily armed militias from across the country.

The changes to Levine’s bill did little to satisfy gun rights activists, who complained that the ban on extended magazines would criminalize possession of items they had legally purchased. After the committee approved the measure on a party-line 12-9 vote, some in the hearing room chanted, and one man yelled the state motto — “Sic semper tyrannis,” or “thus always to tyrants.”

Committee Chairman Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, then asked police to clear the room.

“This egregious gun ban is designed to make millions of law-abiding Virginians felons overnight,” National Rifle Association spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said in an email. “Lawmakers have delayed bringing up this gun ban because voters from across the Commonwealth oppose it.”

Brian Moran, Northam’s secretary of public safety and homeland security, urged the committee to back the bill.

“Assault weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment because they’re weapons of war... . They’re not protected, just like machine guns before them,” he said. “The court will uphold this legislation. You just need to pass it.”