Bill Text: VA HB173 | 2024 | Regular Session | Conference Sub
Bill Title: Plastic firearms & unfinished frames, etc.; manufacture, import, etc. prohibited, penalties.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 19-0)
Status: (Enrolled) 2024-04-17 - Governor: Governor's Action Deadline 11:59 p.m., May 17, 2024 [HB173 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2024-HB173-Conference_Sub.html
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. That §§18.2-53.1 and 18.2-308.5 of the Code of Virginia are amended and reenacted as follows:
§18.2-53.1. Use or display of firearm in committing felony.
It shall be is unlawful for any person to use or
attempt to use any pistol, shotgun, rifle, or other firearm, including a
plastic firearm as defined in §18.2-308.5, or display such weapon in a
threatening manner while committing or attempting to commit murder, rape,
forcible sodomy, inanimate or animate object sexual penetration as defined in §
18.2-67.2, robbery, carjacking, burglary, malicious wounding as defined in §18.2-51,
malicious bodily injury to a law-enforcement officer as defined in §18.2-51.1,
aggravated malicious wounding as defined in §18.2-51.2, malicious wounding by
mob as defined in §18.2-41 or abduction. Violation of this section shall
constitute constitutes a separate and distinct felony and any person
found guilty thereof shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of
imprisonment of three years for a first conviction, and to a mandatory minimum
term of five 10 years for a second or subsequent conviction under
the provisions of this section. Such punishment shall be separate and apart
from, and shall be made to run consecutively with, any punishment received for
the commission of the primary felony.
§18.2-308.5. Manufacture, import, sale, transfer or possession of plastic firearm prohibited.
It shall be is unlawful for any person to
knowingly manufacture, import, sell, transfer, or possess any
plastic firearm. As used in this section, "plastic firearm" means any
firearm, including machine guns and sawed-off shotguns as defined in this
chapter, containing less than 3.7 ounces of electromagnetically detectable
metal in the barrel, slide, cylinder, frame, or receiver of which
that, when subjected to inspection by X-ray machines commonly used at
airports, does not generate an image that accurately depicts its shape. A
violation of this section shall be is punishable as a Class 5
felony.
2. That the provisions of this act may result in a net increase in periods of imprisonment or commitment. Pursuant to §30-19.1:4 of the Code of Virginia, the estimated amount of the necessary appropriation is at least $64,292 for periods of imprisonment in state adult correctional facilities and cannot be determined for periods of commitment to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice.
