{"id":115504,"date":"2026-03-07T11:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T17:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=115504"},"modified":"2026-03-07T11:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T17:53:14","slug":"115504","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=115504","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wvpublic.org\/story\/government\/senate-president-responds-to-criticism-of-bill-killed-in-the-dark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Senate President Responds To Criticism Of Bill Killed \u2018In The Dark\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Senate President Randy Smith, R-Preston, responded Friday to criticism from the chamber floor about the lack of action on legislation loosely referred to as \u201cthe machine gun bill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wvlegislature.gov\/Bill_Status\/bills_text.cfm?billdoc=sb1071%20intr.htm&amp;yr=2026&amp;sesstype=RS&amp;i=1071\">Senate Bill 1071<\/a>\u00a0would have created the state\u2019s Office of Public Defense, to require the West Virginia State Police to sell machine guns to qualified citizens of the state. There was no fiscal note attached to the bill and it stipulated that the state police would have to take on this responsibility with no additional staff. The bill was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but never made it to the chamber floor.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Laura Chapman, R-Ohio, was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wvpublic.org\/story\/government\/lawmaker-unhappy-with-bills-that-have-been-cut\/\">openly angered<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cIt was killed without transparency and without consensus,\u201d Chapman said Tuesday on the Senate floor. \u201cThe decision was made in the dark, despite the fact that this bill had overwhelming support by this body. This is exactly why the public doesn\u2019t trust politicians.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Smith said in a statement Friday that he alone decided not to take the bill up and said he did so without reservation.<\/strong> He called it a \u201cpoorly drafted piece of legislation\u201d that was unlikely to pass the House of Delegates and would face numerous legal challenges if it did.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith an issue as critical as the protection of our Second Amendment rights, we must ensure the legislation we pass will survive legal challenge. This would not have,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy record with the NRA (National Rifle Association) and WVCDL (West Virginia Citizens Defense League)<em>\u00a0<\/em>is unquestioned, and West Virginians unquestionably trust the judgment of these groups on Second Amendment issues. And, further, I trust them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He said the behavior of an out-of-state group behind the bill had been disappointing but welcomed the Gun Owners of America to consider legislation next year \u2013 preferably earlier in the session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate President Responds To Criticism Of Bill Killed \u2018In The Dark\u2019 Senate President Randy Smith, R-Preston, responded Friday to criticism from the chamber floor about the lack of action on legislation loosely referred to as \u201cthe machine gun bill.\u201d Senate Bill 1071\u00a0would have created the state\u2019s Office of Public Defense, to require the West Virginia &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=115504\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115505,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115504\/revisions\/115505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}