Somewhere, gun traffickers are smiling.
The gun lobby is ecstatic.
New Yorkers? Not so much.
The repeal of Virginia's one-handgun-a-month law would complete the gutting of a measure that was a documented success before state lawmakers began chipping away at it.
Three years after the 1993 enactment of the signature initiative by then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a study conducted by the Washington-based Center to Prevent Handgun Violence said the law had reduced by two-thirds the illegal trafficking of firearms from Virginia to points northeast.
Before the law, people could buy unlimited numbers of handguns from licensed dealers. Monday, the state Senate approved the repeal of the handgun limit. If Gov. Bob McDonnell signs the measure into law, Virginia will have taken a huge step backward.
The GOP-led repeal was also supported by Democrats John S. Edwards of Roanoke and R. Creigh Deeds of Bath, the party flag-bearer in the 2009 gubernatorial election.
It's hard to understand why anyone needs to purchase more than one handgun a month. You don't hunt deer with handguns, which too often end up in the wrong hands. Perhaps repealing this law is a way for some diehards to get back at those Yankees, 150 years after the Civil War.
The decreased effectiveness of the handgun limit was self-inflicted. In 2004, lawmakers carved out exceptions for concealed weapon permit holders and persons purchasing a handgun in a private sale.
"I think the law was dumbed down a bit," said Josh Horwitz, director of the Washington-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, who estimates that private sales make up 40 percent of the Virginia market.
"What I really find offensive about this is that we started with something that really works," he said.
But by 2009, Virginia had the seventh highest rate of crime-gun exports in the nation, according to Trace the Guns, a project of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. If our handgun limit is repealed, whatever ranking we have will come with a bullet.
According to Trace the Guns, two of our neighbors — North Carolina and Maryland — rank 20th and 33{+r}{+d} in crime-gun exports. West Virginia is No. 2 nationally, behind Mississippi.
These rankings have real consequences. If McDonnell supports the repeal, law enforcement will have one less tool to work with in stopping the flow of weapons.
In December, a Virginia gun was linked to the fatal shooting of New York Police Officer Peter Figoski, 47, a father of four. The gun was lost by its owner here in 2009; its disappearance was never reported, Horwitz said.
According to an article in the New York Daily News, Figoski "has become the face of New York's futile fight to stop the flow of deadly guns from Virginia's gun dealers up the so-called Iron Pipeline to the city."
Perhaps the faces and gun-control records of Virginia legislators should be plastered on New York billboards.
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