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1.  Supreme Court upholds the George Mason University building/event gun ban - good and bad news
2.  New gun bills introduced, including more VCDL requested bills

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1.  Supreme Court upholds the George Mason University building/event gun ban - good and bad news
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Yesterday the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the George Mason University gun ban was constitutional because it was narrowly tailored and applied to a school or government building or special event.  It does not ban lawful carry outside of the school buildings.

The bad news is, of course, that the GMU ban was upheld.  One key question that was NOT appealed to the Supreme Court was if GMU was even allowed to CREATE such a ban under Virginia law.  The Court only ruled on whether the ban, however it got put in place - rightly or wrongly, was constitutional.

The good news is that for other public universities and colleges, such as VCU, which have a gun ban outside of their buildings and special events, those bans have been **effectively** invalidated.  However, they won't actually be invalidated until the university or college has been taken to court.

For GMU law-abiding gun owners, including students, can have a gun outside of the school buildings or special events constitutionally, including stored in a vehicle.  For other universities or colleges the same won't apply until a court rules their ban to be invalid.  I would be quite surprised if any of those schools were to even attempt to enforce their ban outside of a school building or special event as they are virtually guaranteed to lose in court.  I'm betting that they keep their bans on the books to intimidate the unknowing, but do so without any attempt at actual enforcement.

This isn't necessarily over, either.  A new lawsuit can explore many areas of the legality of the ban that the previous suit did not.

Attorney General Cuccinelli said last year that when the suit was over he would explain why he sided with GMU and didn't abstain from defending GMU (an outside counsel could have been used to do so).  I will advise when we know more on this.

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2.  New gun bills introduced, including more VCDL requested bills
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The following gun bill has been WITHDRAWN:

SB 755 - Senator Reynolds - allows someone who has had mental health treatment or substance abuse treatment in a residential setting to petition the Court for restoration of a CHP before the current five year waiting period has expired

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The following gun bill has had its status changed from Strongly Support to Oppose for consistency reasons.  Since CHPs are available to all citizens, including correctional officers, this bill is not needed.

HB 2062 - Delegate Bell - adds a correctional officer to list of those who can carry concealed without a CHP - VCDL Opposes this bill

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New bills:

HB 2380 - Delegate Pogge - gives certain civil immunities to all employers who do not prohibit their employees from storing their firearms in their private vehicles while such private vehicles are parked on company property.  Put in at VCDL's request - VCDL Strongly Supports this bill

HB 2386 - Delegate Jackson Miller - changes concealed HANDGUN permits to concealed WEAPON permits - VCDL Strongly Supports this bill

SB 903 - Senator Deeds - would make someone convicted of having a firearm on school property guilty of a VIOLENT felony.  It is bad enough that a person who inadvertently brings a gun onto K-12 property can be turned into a felon without the state having to prove any kind of evil intent, but this makes it even more unjust - VCDL Strongly Opposes this bill

SB 1250 - Senator Vogel - state agency preemption.  Prohibits any state agency from enacting gun control without the permission of the General Assembly.  Put in at VCDL's request - VCDL Strongly Supports this bill

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Finally, having an email exchange with Delegate Surovell on one of his bills, I am changing the bill's previous analysis to this:

HJ 604 - Delegate Surovell - under this suggested change to Virginia's Constitution, if enough cities and counties get together and represent enough of Virginia's population, they can repeal any state law or regulation - VCDL Strongly Opposes this bill, which is not directed at gun laws per se, because of the danger posed to gun rights  if enough localities banned together and repealed firearm preemption laws or turned the Dillon Rule into mush