Photo: WRIC ABC 8
India-West Staff Reporter
ASHBURN, VA – “It seems like the gun lobby won the day over what people in our community want,” VA State Senator Suhas Subramanyam (D-Loudon) said on March 28. “If we make it easy for people to obtain assault weapons and carry them in public, we are really jeopardizing the safety of our community.”
He was speaking of Governor Youngkin’s vetoes of critical gun violence prevention bills that he was the chief co-patron on in the Senate.
A bill vetoed by Youngkin would have instituted a five-day waiting period before someone could purchase a gun. “This [waiting period] is important because I see suicides happen because someone can buy a gun and then shoot themselves on the same day, or they can perpetrate a crime within the same day or two,” Subramanyam said.
Two more of Subramanyam’s critical bills were vetoed: one prohibiting the importation, sale, manufacture, or purchase of automatic weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, and another prohibiting automatic weapons from being carried in public.
Two of Subramanyam’s bills were signed into law which will now ban manufacturing of undetectable firearms and the sale of devices to make weapons automatic.
Subramanyam who is running for Congress pledged to continue to fight and said he was committed to “breaking the stronghold the NRA and gun manufacturers have had over elected officials, instead siding with most Virginians who want sensible gun control reforms that protect our communities.”