It is important than men and women be permitted to provide for their personal protection while enjoying the outdoors by hiking, biking, camping in Virginia's beautiful forests.  I firmly support the petition and believe it is time that Virginia should join Georgia and other states that do not infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms in the great outdoors. To continue with the current regulation is to continue to stomp upon the constitutionally protected natural rights of the citizens and guests of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

The second amendment of the United States Constitution protects the pre-existing individual right to keep and carry arms by declaring the following: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  

Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution protects the pre-existing natural right to self-defense by declaring the following: "That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

It is unjust for the Commonwealth to continue the infringement that is the subject of this petition.