Gun Owners Emboldened by New Laws
Gun show coming to Fairfax; guns ride on hips “unconcealed,†out and about.
By David Harrison
July 22, 2004
On July 31, thousands of gun enthusiasts from all over the area will descend on Fairfax County to browse among 1,000 vendors selling tens of thousands of firearms at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly. The event, billed as "The Nation's Gun Show" by its organizers, is the first such event in Fairfax County in 40 years and one of the biggest gun shows the state has seen, said Steven Elliott, president of C&E Gun Shows, the Blacksburg company which is organizing the event.
"I've been doing this for 17 years and this is by far the highest quality show that I've ever produced," said Elliott. "It's going to be interesting because we've never been up there and we don't know what to expect."
The first-of-its-kind gun show in Northern Virginia is one of several instances of muscle flexing by gun rights activists recently. In the past few weeks, several members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a pro-gun organization, have been openly carrying their weapons in restaurants and Starbucks, which, in some cases, has led other diners to call the police.
A party of 13 diners, several carrying visible guns, was approached by police officers at a Champps Restaurant in Reston a couple weeks ago. Jim Snyder was among the 13.
"[Police] talked to us probably for 30 seconds, then they left our immediate area, then they spent another 20 or 30 minutes trying to figure out whether what we were doing was legal and then they left," recalled Snyder, a Kingstowne resident who was carrying his gun at the restaurant. "I think the police did a very good job."
Snyder's experience and a similar one at a Starbucks store seem to have mobilized gun owners, said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League.
"The incident that happened at Starbucks probably alerted a whole lot of people to the concept of open carry," he said. "Some gun owners looked at that incident and said, 'You know, I need to exercise this right.'"
Van Cleave, a software programmer from Richmond, said the incidents were not planned. "We haven't been coordinating."
"It's definitely a response," said Darrin Guthrie, the owner of All American Guns in Fairfax. "It's because a few jackasses are making a big deal about it so everybody's pissed off."
Guthrie, a concealed permit holder, said he and other county gun owners have been carrying weapons "for years."
"Nothing's happened," he said. "I don't see what the big deal is."
Snyder said he was also surprised that people have all of a sudden become concerned about gun-toting diners. He's been taking his gun to restaurants for nine years, he said, without any problems.
But Jim Sollo, a Springfield resident who runs the advocacy group Virginians Against Handgun Violence, said the incidents of gun-carrying residents concerns him. "We've felt that the gun guys have sort of been eager to show that they can now carry their guns legally."
Restaurant managers have also voiced concern about seeing guns in their establishments. Some have posted signs near the door telling patrons that guns are not allowed inside.
"Whenever that issue comes up we get a lot of communication from our members stressing the importance of trying to separate the two," said Lynne Breaux, executive director of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington. "We are opposed to guns in bars and that's always been the position of the restaurant association."
Snyder sees some hypocrisy in position of managers who oppose guns in their restaurants and bars.
"Those restaurateurs don't seem to have a problem selling alcohol to somebody who is going to get in his car and drive and there's a demonstrated problem with that," noted Snyder, who says he doesn't drink. "This is just posturing they're doing about law-abiding citizens lawfully carrying firearms where there have been no problems."
ALTHOUGH IT'S always been legal for Virginians to clip a visible gun to their belts before going out in public, gun advocates celebrated a victory in the General Assembly this year when lawmakers approved a measure, House Bill 530, prohibiting local governments from writing their own gun rules. Local governments in the Commonwealth now can only follow the state's gun rules and not impose new ones on their own.
In Fairfax County, that means the Fairfax County police have dropped the 40-year-old practice of conducting background checks on potential gun buyers. County residents who want to buy guns now only go through a state police background check, which is required by federal law. Although the two background tests duplicated each other, the county test took up to three days to complete while the state test only took several minutes, which had the practical effect of creating a waiting period for Fairfax County gun buyers. Under the new law, the county must also destroy all the records it kept when performing background checks.
Elliott, the gun show organizer, said the abolition of Fairfax County's de facto waiting period drew him to hold his first show in the county.
"Everybody's wanted to go up there [to Fairfax] for years and years," he said. "We've worked on this for years and we were finally lucky enough to be able to get some favorable legislation passed."
Arlington County also performed its own background checks, said Matt Martin, a spokesman for the Arlington County Police Department.
"There were so few stores that sold handguns in Arlington that we weren't doing that many [checks]," he said. "All in all it had no practical effect in Arlington."
In Alexandria, however, the new state law replaced a city rule that made it illegal to openly carry a gun in public in the City of Alexandria.
"It appears the Alexandria ordinance is probably invalid," said Bryan Porter, assistant Commonwealth's Attorney in Alexandria. "It's still there on the books but I don't think we'll prosecute it because of the new state code section."
But Porter, who served as a police officer in the city before becoming a prosecutor, said he has never heard of an instance where somebody was prosecuted for carrying a gun in public.
"To me that means it's unlikely to cause a whole big deal here," he said, adding that it was possible that gun rights activists might carry their guns openly in Alexandria to challenge to city ordinance. "For the next week or two there might be a slight upswing in the number."
DEL. CHAP PETERSEN (D-37) said there hasn't been much debate over gun laws in the General Assembly over the past few years.
"The basic shorthand is that when it comes to firearms, state law prevails," he said.
When he first went to Richmond in 2002, he was assigned to the House Committee on Militia and Police where members of the audience often openly carried their guns inside the hearing rooms of the General Assembly building. At first, Petersen said he was surprised.
"It was kind of like something out of 'Gunsmoke,'" he said. "I'm not used to seeing people show up at public meetings with Colt 45s strapped to their belt."
Over the years, however, he said he got "inured" to the sight.
"They're always there and they're always packing heat," he said. "It's a different culture."
Petersen, who is running for Lieutenant Governor is 2005, voted in favor of the bill preventing local governments from passing their own rules on guns.
Even though it's always been legal to carry guns openly in Virginia, the practice has some lawmakers worried.
"If you are in a place of business, in a restaurant, and someone walks through the door obviously with a gun you cannot distinguish whether they're an emotionally stable, law abiding citizen or whether it's a psycho about to commit a mass murder," said Del. Ken Plum (D-36).
Under the law, it would be legal for gang members to walk around with a guns visibly swinging from thei belts. But Martin, the Arlington County police spokesman, said police officers were not particularly concerned about gang members following the law.
"We're not worried about a gang member legally using a gun we're worried about a gang member illegally using a gun," he said. "Criminals who are going to use firearms aren't going to follow the law anyway."
Nevertheless, he said, police officers would prefer seeing fewer guns around.
"Anytime there's a firearm in the picture ... it makes officers a little more nervous," he said. Arlington police officers have responded to several calls in the past few years of gun advocates openly carrying their guns into public places such as libraries, he added.
"Just looking at it from a public safety standpoint, fewer guns out in the public is most likely a safer situation than more guns."
THE NEXT LEGISLATIVE battle over guns is likely to be over whether people with concealed weapons permits can carry a concealed weapon in a restaurant or bar. Right now permit holders must wear their guns openly if they want to go to places that serve alcohol whereas they can conceal their guns when they go just about anywhere else. The only places where guns are not allowed at all are in courts, schools and places of worship. Owners of private businesses can also refuse to serve people who carry guns.
Van Cleave, the president of Virginia Citizens Defense League, said it makes no sense to prohibit concealed permit holders from concealing their weapons in a restaurant or a bar.
"Concealed permit holders are by definition the most law abiding citizens of Virginia," he said, noting that concealed permit holders must not only pass a background check but also pass a safety training course.
An effort to allow concealed permit holders hide their weapons in restaurants and bars died in committee in 2003.
State Sen. Janet Howell has introduced legislation to ban all weapons from bars and restaurants, whether concealed or not, but her bills have also died in committee.
"It came close to passing out of the Senate's Courts of Justice Committee," she said. "It came closer than we expected."
She vowed to keep trying.
It is unclear at this point how the movement among gun owners to openly carry their weapons will affect the General Assembly. Plum and Howell said they've been deluged with calls and e-mails from angry constituents urging them to make gun-toting illegal.
Van Cleave said the attention being paid to gun laws could mobilize the public to support his efforts to allow concealed permit holders to bring their guns into restaurants and bars. But it could also galvanize the public for more gun control.
"It could go either way," he said.
To Sollo, however, the recent efforts of gun rights activists set the stage for tighter run rules in Virginia.
"If the gun boys are going to push the envelope on this, at some point, we think they're going to tick off the general public," he said.