This regulation should not be approved and the emergency regulation should be withdrawn.  Because of the importance of this regulation and its disaterous concequences, please extend the comment period for another 30 days.

The purpose of this proposed regulation is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. We have had no shootings or incidents in state agencies.  If the intended purpose is to stop terrorist acts and violent criminals from doing sinister acts, it is misguided and short sighted.  This regulation will have the opposite effect.  It will embolden those who would do bad things in the Commonwealth, playing into their hands. This prohibition on those with a concealed handgun permit, some of whom have active and ongoing threats to their lives, is entirely without any justification.  It is a solution for which there is no problem.

It needlessly and recklessly endangers innocent lives, state employees, law abiding citizens, government property and the general public.  It makes state buildings a safe zone, or “gun free zone”, for bad people to conduct their evil and savage acts.  Disarming good citizens, the ones likely to obey the prohibition, does not make them safer.  All but two of the public massacres since 1950 have been committed by criminals and terrorists in “gun-free zones.” So why are we creating them in Virginia?

As if the ban on concealed handgun permits is not inane enough, this regulation also prevents off-duty police officers from carrying.  That is nonsense. The Washington DC police chief recently stated that the best way to deter shooting and terrorist attacks in the public arena is for the citizenry to be armed.  However, the chief went on to lament that that was not allowed in DC.  That’s another gun free zone!

Additionally, and just as important, the Governor has no authority to issue this regulation.  If the General Assembly wanted the Governor to have such power, they would have granted it to him explicitly as is required by Virginia’s constitution.