Even the most incremental gun reform is elusive in the United States today. So every small legislative victory deserves at least a little celebration. Virginia’s recent compromise on gun storage meets the mark.
The state’s House of Delegates last week passed a bill that would give gun owners a $300 tax credit to buy safes to store their firearms. The degree of consensus behind the legislation devoting $5 million to allow taxpayers to write off “safety devices” such as cases that lock was remarkable: a 99-to-1 vote for a proposal introduced by a Democrat and backed by the National Rifle Association. Then again, the support might not be all that surprising. Democrats will generally support any reasonable measure on gun safety; with more of such measures being put on the table, the NRA is likelier than ever to seize on those that give something to owners rather than take it away.
All the same, this change could make a difference. It comes in the wake of a shooting in Newport News in which a 6-year-old took his parents’ gun to school and shot his teacher. The family’s lawyers say the gun was stored securely on a high shelf in a bedroom closet — but $300 is more than enough to purchase a safe with a biometric locking device that no first-grader could bypass. Indeed, a delegate demonstrated a $60 version of such a tool as he attempted to sell his Republican colleagues in the House on a different bill that would have mandated the locking up of firearms and ammunition in any home where there are children.
The state Senate passed even more robust proposals, including a ban on the sale of assault weapons that were manufactured in recent months. But they’re likely to die in the House, which has itself passed multiple proposals that expand gun rights. These, in turn, are likely to die in the Senate.
More robust restrictions would be preferable to the tax credit that managed to pass the House. Yet all the same, in a state with virtually no rules about safe storage (Virginia has only a prohibition on recklessly leaving a loaded, unsecured firearm in a manner that endangers young children), it could save some lives. Compromises such as Virginia’s can’t be the last word on gun reform. But they’re better than silence.
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