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At the regular Council meeting of November 18th, several requests for action by the Legislature were approved, including this one, which is a request to add Charlottesville to the list of localities specifically authorized to have limits on guns as described below. Delegate Toscano is not sanguine for its prospects. He says, "Any kind of gun control issue is extremely problematic. It will be a hot-button issue no matter what, independent of the arguments for it."
The City Council of the City of Charlottesville, like many other localities throughout the nation, is concerned with the proliferation of gun-related violence. The City seeks to take any and all measures available to curb gun violence within the boundaries of the City. One such method is to add Charlottesville to the list of localities named in Code of Virginia section 18.2-287.4, which prohibits the carrying in public of certain loaded semi-automatic rifles, pistols or shotguns. The localities that currently benefit from this protection are the Cities of Alexandria, Chesapeake, Fairfax, Falls Church, Newport News, Norfolk, Richmond, and Virginia Beach as well as the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Henrico, Loudoun, and Prince William. In each of the localities named, it is unlawful for any person to carry a loaded (a) semi-automatic center-fire rifle or pistol that expels single or multiple projectiles by action of an explosion of a combustible material and is equipped at the time of the offense with a magazine that will hold more than 20 rounds of ammunition or designed by the manufacturer to accommodate a silencer or equipped with a folding stock or (b) shotgun with a magazine that will hold more than seven rounds of the longest ammunition for which it is chambered on or about his person on any public street, road, alley, sidewalk, public right-of-way, or in any public park or any other place of whatever nature that is open to the public.
The City Council believes that the citizens of the City of Charlottesville deserve
the same protections afforded to the citizens of the named localities by way of this law,
and respectfully requests that Charlottesville be added to this code section. A proposed
amendment to is attached.
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