to be completely honest, i have no idea who these people are, but these are the candidates who showed up to the virtual VA AG candidate forum hosted by the gun lobby

it's going really well

jason miyares says our rights are given to us by god so the government can never take them away (great legal framework for a guy who wants to be the attorney general).

ok, now i remember chuck smith. he gave a very confusing speech at that nazi rally on the fourth of july https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1279465392235298816?s=20

the first question is whether the candidates are VCDL members. leslie haley says she isn't a member but is a concealed carry permit holder. jason miyares is not a VCDL member but is a CC permit holder & a member of the NRA. again, he says his right to carry a gun is from god.

chuck smith says he is a VCDL member and he was endorsed by VCDL in the last election cycle. he says he believes he has participated in "every VCDL event" for the last 6 years.

the moderator, cathy mcnickle, emphasizes that the PAC, not VCDL, does political endorsements. smith says it was his understanding that he had to be a member of the org to get the PAC's endorsement, which mcnickle confirms is the practice.

"there is no universe where the 2nd amendment can be suspended," says chuck smith, saying he would lift all local restrictions on the 2nd amendment (currently, localities can enact ordinances limiting or even prohibiting firearms from certain places, like public parks)

miyares says the patchwork nature of the ordinances makes criminals out of law abiding gun owners & he would repeal them. leslie haley says these ordinances are "eroding the 2nd amendment" and also favors repealing them all.

"we're not defending ourselves against animals or dogs - we're defending ourselves against a government that's gotten too large," chuck smith says of his belief that the founding fathers' intended for us to arm ourselves against tyrannical government.

haley & miyares answer similarly - they believe american citizens have the right to defend themselves using firearms from a tyrannical government. miyares emphasizes, again, that this right is from god and that communists always seek to disarm the citizens.

haley says she does "not believe" in red flag laws and says people who are in crisis will find a way to hurt themselves or others whether they have guns or not, citing a single incident where a man attacked his family with an axe.

miyares says he voted against the red flag law currently on the books & defends his stance on a bill he introduced allowing people adjudicated mentally insane to turn over firearms to a friend.

chuck smith says if miyares wants people found by a court to be legally insane & incompetent to have to give their guns temporarily to a friend or family member, "then he really doesn't believe in the constitution."

"the police should not be able to confiscate this," miyares says about police confiscating legal firearms during traffic stops.
"i will always stand with our boys that wear the shield," he says, "but there are gonna be bad actors - they're still actors of the government."

(it's fascinating to watch them straddle the line here - we love cops! so much! always be licking that boot! but... we need our guns to fight tyranny and cops exist to exert the will of the state and the state wants to take our guns....??????)

"nobody is standing taller for their men & women in blue than i've done on the board of supervisors in chesterfield, says haley, but that cops need training & education on how not to violate people's gun rights.

the questions have a definite slant to them lol

unsurprisingly, none of the candidates who showed up to the forum hosted by the gun lobby support gun free zones

miyares says gun free zones are target rich environments for psychopaths who want to create human carnage. he obviously spends a lot of time imagining shooting a mass shooter and i hope he thinks about other stuff sometimes too?

next question is about permitless concealed carry - miyares says he supports it, "it seems absurd" that it matters whether you can see that he's armed or not.

(in virginia, anyone who can legally have a gun can legally carry it openly, but currently you need a permit to carry a concealed weapon)

chuck smith says the state preventing someone from carrying a weapon that is covered by their coat is an unlawful infringement on their right to bear arms.

next question is about closing off sharing of info about VA CCP holders - currently, law enforcement in all 50 states can access info about who has a VA concealed carry permit. candidates are asked whether they'd support limiting that to states who recognize VA CCPs.

(the scenario posited by the question is that VA residents with conceal carry permits traveling in states where their permit is not valid may be harassed by law enforcement who can see that they may be armed)

chuck smith says he would go further than that - "the 2nd amendment is not a VA law," "it is the supreme law of the land." he says he would "take that particular state to task," if a VA resident's gun rights were infringed upon.

(imagining virginia attorney general chuck smith suing the state of maryland because a state trooper accessed information about a driver's conceal carry permit, lmao)

"mark herring is virginia's eric holder - he's nothing but far left extremist," says jason miyares about the current VA attorney general.

miyares says "i will always back the blue, but listen we have to hold the police to a high standard," and says he would put a stop to cops using CCP info to unlawfully harass virginia gun owners.

chuck smith says the right to bear arms "presupposes more than just the device itself," and that restrictions on ammunition are also an infringement on the second amendment.

the next question is about gun safety training in elementary schools - an incredibly funny question from the org that got tricked by sacha baron cohen into endorsing giving guns to toddlers

chuck smith says guns don't kill people, people kill people and sometimes they kill people accidentally so gun safety training is good... but it should never be mandatory because that would be an infringement on people's rights.

lesley haley agrees that getting the government involved at all is a problem, "i don't wanna see the government involved in this type of firearms safety training because i don't want there to be a negative connotation." she agrees training is good but should never be mandatory.

next question is about whether public funds should be used to fund competitive shooting in high school the same way sports like gymnastics are funded. (obviously everyone says yes)

very kind of the moderator to read the full text of the 4th amendment before expecting candidates for attorney general to answer a question about it.

"our founders were as concerned about monarchy as they were about anarchy," miyares says. he says liberal judges are chipping away at our 2nd & 4th amendment rights.

chuck johnson says we are finally seeing the interplay between the 2nd, 4th, and 5th amendments. he says the 5th amendment means the government can't take your gun under a red flag law and the 4th amendment says they can't come into your house and get it.

(i don't think this is a correct interpretation of red flag laws or the constitution by idk i'm not a lawyer or a candidate for attorney general)

miyares says politicians in richmond have a "criminal first, victim last" mindset. he opposes the automatic restoration of rights for felons (which is weird because i thought bad gun laws were turning lawful gun owners into felons which was unconstitutional???)

"there have been some comments made about whether or not chuck smith has actually prosecuted," says chuck smith. (he served in the JAG corps but i can't tell you a whole lot more than that about his legal career)

leslie haley supports full restoration of rights for felons, assuming all the procedural hoops are jumped through (although she doesn't outline what the procedure would be or who would be eligible) - but emphasizes that if any rights are restored (voting), all should be (guns)

chuck smith says a strict construction of the second amendment would allow 'ghost guns,' and leslie haley agrees.

"we're coming down into the nuances of what exactly is a gun vs a different kind of weapon," she says. she doesn't think the fed govt has the authority to restrict guns that are made vs purchased.

miyares says outlawing ghost guns would only criminalize "innocent hobbyists," and says changing the laws around this is akin to "burning down the house to kill some spiders."

the questions are really editorializing quite a bit

leslie haley says closing the background check loophole will only encourage illegal private gun sales (???)
miyares says it would criminalize granddads giving family heirloom guns to grandchildren for christmas.