Virginia is going to be interesting to watch in 2020 as the gun debate will heat up there at the start of the year.

2020 is going to be an interesting year - we got elections going on in November, the Senate impeachment trial early in the year (if Pelosi ever hands over the articles of impeachment to the senate - but that is not for here right now), and Virginia becoming an interesting place to watch as 2020 starts up. If you have not been following along with what has been going out there - the quick and dirty of it is that Ralph Northam (the governor of Virginia) has been pushing for new gun control legislation - and with the flipping of the statehouse and senate from republican to democrat, he reintroduced this legislation - knowing that more than likely everything he wanted would get passed. Well, it passed and has created a lot of repercussions in the state. As of December 19th, there are 94 cities/counties that have passed local resolutions declaring themselves 2nd amendment sanctuaries. Those on the extreme side will say "these locations are not going to uphold the law" - but in honestly they are just being hyperbolic. These locations will need to uphold the law - for the most part, these resolutions are nothing more than political statements. This is according to Richard Schragger, a professor at the University of Virginia School of law. He was interviewed in an article for USA Today regarding what is going on in Virginia. He further commented: "In Virginia, state law supersedes local law. Citizens and local officials have to comply with state law even if a county declares itself to be a Second Amendment sanctuary," - in other words in Virginia local law is overridden by state law and because of that if all of these laws are signed into law then these laws technically would need to be followed. But what is fact and what is fiction about what is in these laws?
One of the biggest reasons that the second amendment sanctuary cities have been popping up is due to the language in one of the laws introduced into the legislation regarding gun ownership. The law as written goes after people who currently own weapons - not just the purchase, transfer, sale of firearms.
Now let me state this upfront:
As of today (December 28th, 2019) these facts are what they are. Things may change quickly - and soon - but as of now this is how things stand. All data is linked in the notes - including the text of the law that is being proposed.
So what does the law actually say? Well if we take a look at it, it currently states:
It s unlawful for any person to import, sell, transfer, manufacture, purchase, possess, or transport an assault firearm. A violation of this section is punishable as a  ****Class 6 felony.
This information can be found on lines 433 - 437 of the bill. What I find interesting is that on line 433 they remove the word posses but then reintroduce the same word on line 436 - not sure why they did it that way but regardless the bill as it currently stands states that possession of an assault weapon is prohibited in Virginia.
We keep hearing about how bad assault weapons are but what exactly is an assault weapon? Well, that definition really depends on who you ask. If you ask the army - there are assault rifles not assault weapons - and for a rifle to be considered an assault rifle it meets all of the following conditions: It has selective fire, It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_rifle (battle rifle), Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable box magazine, and It must have an effective range of at least 300 meters (330 yards). An assault weapon, on the other ha