Afforded a trifecta in November and no longer kept in check by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin's vetoes, Democratic lawmakers in Virginia are poised to greatly limit gun rights in the state.
They are working to advance, for instance, a ban on the sale, purchase, manufacture, transfer, or importation of so-called "assault firearms" and magazines capable of holding over 10 rounds; a bill that would establish a five-day waiting period for all firearm sales; legislation that would impose an 11% tax on the purchase of any firearm or ammunition in the state; and a bill that would further limit where law-abiding Virginians can carry a gun.
'Someone feels that they have the right to infringe upon this.'
The Second Amendment's would-be curtailers in the General Assembly of Virginia — a state with the official motto Sic Semper Tyrannis, "Thus always to tyrants" — have a champion in Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), who made clear on the campaign trail last year, "I will sign commonsense gun violence prevention bills."
It turns out that Virginians are less than enthused about the Democratic regime's gun agenda.
A survey conducted from Feb. 16 to 17 by Quantus Insights found that registered voters overwhelmingly oppose the legislative proposals now being considered in Richmond.
Eighty-four percent of respondents agreed that "the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental freedom protected by the U.S. Constitution," and 65% agreed with the statement that "gun control laws mainly make it harder for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, while criminals ignore the laws anyway."
RELATED: 'Fake Moderate’ Democratic governor demands local police cut ties with ICE
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
When asked about a ban "on commonly owned firearms labeled as 'assault weapons,'" 60% of respondents signaled opposition. Only 33% said they would support such a ban.
Sixty percent of Democrats and 15% of Republicans said that they would support a ban.
When asked about a ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds — a prohibition built into the Democratic bill passed by the state House in a 58-34 vote earlier this month — 58% of respondents signaled opposition.
An even greater percentage of respondents, 65%, said they opposed the proposed 11% state tax on firearms and ammunition.
Law enforcement leaders are among the loudest critics of the gun-control laws proposed by Democrats.
Amherst County Sheriff LJ Ayers, for instance, said in a video statement on Wednesday, "The Second Amendment grants us the right to bear arms — to protect ourselves, our homes, our property; to go with our children, our family, our friends out hunting, to enjoy God's given nature — and someone feels that they have the right to infringe upon this."
Ayers stressed that such efforts were "appalling" and emphasized that the Democratic legislation will only impact law-abiding citizens, not the criminals who'll inevitably find workarounds.
WSET-TV reported that sheriffs in Campbell, Henry, Appomattox, and Bedford Counties have similarly spoken out against the proposed gun-control laws.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!This isn't war, it's a rescue operation.
Israel said on Saturday that it has taken part in a U.S.-led military operation in Iran, with Jerusalem reportedly targeting the top leadership of the Islamist regime in Tehran.
The post Israel Strikes ‘Hundreds of Targets’ Inside Iran, Netanyahu Calls on Iranians to Topple Regime appeared first on Breitbart.
The U.S. military struck Iran alongside Israeli forces on Saturday morning, and Iran lashed out with attacks on Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait.
President Donald Trump issued a national statement about the military operation dubbed "Operation Epic Fury" late Friday evening.
'The Israeli Air Force is operating to intercept and strike threats where necessary to remove the threat.'
"The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests," Trump said. "We're going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated."
Sirens in Israel indicated that Iran launched a wave of missiles against the country, but some reports said the effort was muted.
"A short while ago, sirens were sounded in several areas across the country following the identification of missiles launched from Iran toward the State of Israel," read a statement from Israel. "At this time, the Israeli Air Force is operating to intercept and strike threats where necessary to remove the threat."
The Ministry of Interior in Bahrain ordered evacuations of some parts of the country, including Juffair.
The United Arab Emirates said that the strike from Iran violated UAE's sovereignty and the country reserves the right to respond.
Iran also launched missiles at the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, leading the country to condemn the attacks.
Loud explosions and warning sirens were reported in Kuwait near the U.S. military base.
Several heavy explosions were also heard in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
The strikes reportedly targeted the Iranian parliament, the Supreme National Security Council, and the Ministry of Intelligence, as well as the Iranian atomic agency.
Russia also called for an immediate halt to the strikes on Iran and ordered all Russian citizens to leave Israel.
RELATED: Iran strike looms as Trump hosts Board of Peace
"To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police," Trump said in his speech, "I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity or, in the alternative, face certain death."
The regime in Iran has been facing political demonstrations from dissidents opposed to its totalitarian rule, and some reports claim that tens of thousands have perished from the violent response.
Trump had warned Iran that if the government killed protesters, the U.S. would "come to their rescue."
It appears that he fulfilled that promise.
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Our prayers have been answered. The Iranian people are dancing in the streets.
America's allies in Europe have called for "restraint" following a series of military strikes against the Islamist Iranian regime, while the United Kingdom has warned against potential "escalation" into a broader regional conflict.
The post EU Calls for ‘Restraint’ Amid U.S. Strikes on Iran, UK Warns Against ‘Escalation Into Wider Regional Conflict’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Earlier this month, the Cato Institute — perhaps the most effective think tank advocating open borders — published a study claiming that since 1994, immigration has generated a whopping $14.5 trillion surplus in tax revenues over expenditures.
Critics quickly noted that Cato’s study uses a strange standard for judging immigration policy. For example, the study admits that immigration drives up housing prices by increasing demand, yet it still treats the resulting rise in property-tax payments from homeowners — citizens and noncitizens alike — as a benefit.
Who the ‘American people’ were in 1776 or 1787, or are in 2026, is a much-disputed question, but that does not exempt us from trying to answer it.
But perhaps more fundamental is the study’s idea of what should count as an expenditure on immigrants. It treats the educational and medical expenses of immigrants’ American-born children — all of whom Cato claims are “birthright citizens” — as expenditures on citizens rather than on immigrants. This is the same kind of sleight of hand we saw during COVID, when the rise in illness experienced after the first of two shots was counted as cases among the unvaccinated rather than the half-vaccinated.
Statistical games aside, such studies raise a far deeper question: To whose well-being, security, and liberty is the government of the United States directed? That is answered for us in the preamble to our fundamental law, the Constitution of 1787:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.When I cited the preamble recently, the libertarian economist Glen Whitman replied that it is not binding law. Perhaps, but it is something more fundamental than law — it tells us what our laws should be trying to achieve.
Who the “American people” were in 1776 or 1787, or are in 2026, is a much-disputed question, but that does not exempt us from trying to answer it.
When John Rawls — the late political philosopher and the most influential liberal theorist of my generation — tried to explain how rational people should design society’s basic institutions, he did not treat civilization as nothing more than a collection of isolated individuals. In his famous “original position,” he argued that we should imagine ourselves not only as individuals but also as representatives of “continuing persons” — family heads, or stewards of enduring family lines.
This concept of continuing persons was Rawls’ clunky but effective mid-20th-century version of Gouverneur Morris’ more eloquent “ourselves and our posterity.” It does not seem crazy or racist — Rawls would have said it was reasonable — to think that immigration policy should be assessed from the perspective of current citizens and their descendants. In fact, that was how the historical Rawls claimed we should think about immigration, much to the surprise and dismay of his students and epigones.
On social media, we find the repeated cry that the so-called great replacement — the notion that elites are exchanging native populations for more tractable revenue producers — is a demagogic lie. After all, the open-borders pundits argue, more immigration doesn’t mean anybody is forced to leave.
RELATED: America has immigration laws — just not in these courtrooms
Cemile Bingol / Getty Images
But we are all forced to leave. Someday, each of us will be reunited with his or her fathers and mothers. Our descendants — the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren we leave behind in the country we made for them — are our posterity.
Another problem is that mass immigration not only increases the demand for housing, but it also suppresses the wage expectations of the native-born, particularly native-born men who are low-income workers. By increasing housing prices and reducing lifetime wages, mass immigration erodes the economic foundation required for family life, making fewer native-born men marriageable.
This decreases the fertility of the native-born. While an increasing share of children are born to unwed mothers, unwed parenting is sufficiently difficult that few such mothers have more than one child, and very few have more than two. Governments then trumpet studies like Cato’s to justify bringing in immigrants to support the aging natives who do not have enough of their own posterity to meet the fiscal need.
To paraphrase Charles de Gaulle, the graveyards are full of irreplaceable men. But if we want our graves to be tended and our memories to be revered by our posterity, we need to work now to ensure that immigration policy serves the welfare, security, and liberty of that posterity.
Those who continue the work of George Washington and the other founders by maintaining and passing on the union they built — stronger, more united, and free — may not be their blood relatives, but they can justly claim to be their spiritual progeny.
A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.