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Norfolk — Petitioners have turned in enough signatures to force Norfolk’s City Council to consider a measure that would instruct city police to effectively ignore new gun-control measures passed by the Virginia General Assembly, the lead organizer behind the petition effort said.
Such a vote is unlikely from a largely liberal council that voted this year to ask state lawmakers to give the city the right to ban guns in more public places. But the issue could ultimately be decided by voters.
Bob Brown, the chairman of Norfolk’s Republican Party and the lead petitioner, said his group turned in roughly 1,400 signatures to Norfolk’s Circuit Court clerk on Thursday, just ahead of the deadline.
The drive began Jan. 30, and Brown said they lost months of time to collect signatures when quarantine measures went into place as the coronavirus pandemic heated up in America, but things had loosened up enough for them to collect signatures on Election Day in May.
That 1,400 is enough to prompt the city to schedule at least two public hearings on the matter and force council’s consideration under the city charter, though that may ultimately not look much like, well, consideration.
City Attorney Bernard Pishko has previously advised the council that declining to take a vote on the resolution is a form of consideration and an effective rejection. This is how they treated a similar petition effort from critics of the city’s casino deal late last fall.
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Should the council reject — or refuse to vote on — the ordinance, Brown’s group will have a chance to collect several thousand more signatures to force the issue onto the November ballot and give voters the chance to decide.
The Second Amendment ordinance is part of what was a substantial organized backlash during this year’s General Assembly session, where a new Democratic majority passed several laws that gun rights advocates have decried as unconstitutional, including broader background checks for gun purchases and the ability for localities to ban firearms in some public places.
Many of the state’s localities adopted so-called “Second Amendment Sanctuary” resolutions along the lines of what the petitioners in Norfolk are pushing for, though they’ve generally been recognized more as political statements than enforceable policies.
Beyond the refusal to enforce the measures, the petitioners’ proposed ordinance would make the city liable if someone is injured in a place the city has designated a “gun-free zone.”
Norfolk’s City Council has thus far refused to entertain the idea of any such resolution.
The public hearings, expected to be held virtually, have not been scheduled.
Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com