Yetide Badaki, Actress. Producer, Activist
Safer Country Spokesperson and Advisory Committee Honorary Chairperson

Safer Country is prioritizing:

— expanding our red flag law public awareness campaign within Fairfax County and the City of Alexandria, and to other jurisdictions;

— working with military veterans to reduce gun suicides by military veterans;

— updating Virginia’s domestic violence protection orders law to prohibit respondents to ex parte orders from possessing firearms and requiring surrender or to encourage victims, survivors, advocates, and lawyers to ask the judge to explicitly prohibit the respondent from having firearms in the terms of the ex parte order;

— adding a penalty for someone convicted of a misdemeanor in Virginia for brandishing a gun so that there is a loss of a right to possess a gun for a reasonable period of time;

— urging the adoption of Connecticut’s Ethan’s law in Virginia, a comprehensive safe and secure storage law;

— urging the adoption of a law to require the secure storage of a gun while being transported in any vehicle in Virginia, and,

— urging the adoption of legislation to pass a special tax on the sale of guns and ammunition to better fund injuries and other related costs caused by gunfire in Virginia.

As well, are challenging the Fairfax County Sheriff’s policy deterring people from voluntarily turning in their guns to the government for mental health reasons, which was described by a government official this way:

“A person with a weapon in crisis can and should give a friend or trusted associate temporary possession of the weapon. It is in the best interest to draw up a document and have it notarized around how long the person will relinquish possession of the weapon etc. and return when the individual is no longer in crisis.

The second option is to turn the weapon into the sheriff’s office but, they do not recommend this course of action. Resecuring the weapon can be cumbersome because the person would have to go through multiple protocols to prove they are no longer in crisis before the weapon can be returned.”

These Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office policy positions are outrageous.  They ignore the value of doing background checks and put the gun owner’s interests above public safety.  It’s essential that every jurisdiction in Virginia make it easy for people to voluntarily turn in their guns to law enforcement agencies if they have mental health concerns.  Once policies and systems are in place, we need to have a statewide public awareness campaign to encourage it.

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