Town Council candidates speak on the issues: weapons
The seven members of the Council serve staggered four-year terms and are the legislative body of the local government. The Council passes new ordinances, makes rules about land use and long-term planning, and sets all tax rates.
This year, five candidates are running for three open spots — John Bush, Leslie Hager-Smith, Melvyn Jay "Mel" Huber, Paul Lancaster and Michael Sutphin.
Each day this week, the CT will feature one question posed to all candidates, so readers can compare their answers and learn more about them. Today's question deals with a law that allows pneumatic weapons on private property:
The state issued a mandate saying that cities and towns can no longer restrict the use of pneumatic weapons as long as they are used on private property. Do you think the law should have been put it place or repealed?
Leslie Hager-Smith:The real issue there is that Virginia is a Dillon Rule State. What it means is that localities cannot presume to have any authority unless the state allows them to have it. So everything from what color to paint police cars to how to handle derelict properties and whether or not we're going to have BB guns, all of that is out of our hands unless we are given specific permissions at the state level. It's sort of like mother may I, it's a constant frustration and it's costly. Whether or not we want to do something with BB guns is beside the point, we're stuck in this system that doesn't serve us well.
Michael Sutphin:
I know every member of the town council voted to repeal the thing but they did that not because they wanted to, but because they begrudgingly supported it as required by state law. Virginia is a Dillon Rule State, so the relationship between municipalities like Blacksburg and the state government in Richmond is such that we can only do things the General Assembly agrees we can do. So I would have voted the same way as the town council, to allow pneumatic weapons, but I personally wouldn't have done what the General Assembly did about them.
Paul Lancaster:
I think it should be repealed. I think it should be up to the locality. That's one thing the General Assembly likes to do, to pass a law that may be great for one locality but they think it will apply to everybody. To a person, when the current council voted on that, the town attorney made changes in the town code to accommodate that. They all voted 'aye' because they had to, it's state law, but they all complained that they didn't want to do it. This is not a town that needs a pellet gun being run around. I can see someone driving around town late at night shooting up windows. It just doesn't make any sense to me to have it in Blacksburg.
John Bush:
Right now, I would have to say that it should be repealed and left to the localities. It's interesting to me that we have basically a Republican-led General Assembly — that's the same party that talks about local rules and local government and states being able to say what they need and what works best for them when they talk about the federal government. But we're a Dillon Rule state, and what the Dillon Rule essentially means is that localities cannot pass their own laws if it isn't something the General Assembly has already allowed to happen. When they passed the law that says pneumatic guns can be used in town limits, we didn't have a choice. We had to pass it. Personally, for this town, I don't think it's a good idea.
Melvyn Huber:
Melvyn Jay "Mel" Huber was unavailable to comment.
He worked as a lawyer for 56 years with the Wagner & Huber law firm in Blacksburg.
Huber has served on the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, the Republican County Committee and the Rotary Club.
He served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1947-58 and was on active duty during the Korean War.
For more information on Huber, go to HuberForBlacksburg.net
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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.
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