RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR)— Days after a gunman opened fire on a crowd of Las Vegas concerts-goers, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has ordered his public safety team to craft gun safety legislation, according to reports from CBS 6. The bills would be submitted to the Virginia General Assembly for a vote before they could become law.
“Elected officials who have the honor of serving here in Richmond have a responsibility to do everything we can to prevent the next mass shooting from happening in our Commonwealth,” the governor said in a prepared statement on his actions. “In the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, much attention has been paid to the ‘bump stock’ device that allowed the shooter to kill and injure so many people in such a short period of time. We have a responsibility to ban that device in Virginia, and I will introduce legislation this session to do just that.”
In addition to banning the bump stock, Governor McAuliffe will push to ban the sale and possession of “military-style assault rifles” and “high-capacity magazines.”
“Those guns and magazines were not created for hunting or self-protection – they exist to allow a shooter to wound or kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” he said.
“Between now and the end of my term, my team and I will continue to fight every day to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer.”
This is a developing story.