The decision by the owners of the NOVA Gun Shop to locate their new retail store adjacent to Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean is unwise and inappropriate, and potentially puts the health and safety of schoolchildren and faculty at unnecessary risk.
As I noted at the citizen rally on Saturday morning, Sept. 26, at the gun shop, the owners of NOVA Gun Shop should have chosen to locate their store in a more appropriate location out of common decency and respect for our community.
Their decision represents a shocking lack of judgment by the store owner and the landlord who entered into a lease for this facility. Whatever one's personal position on gun ownership, it is simply antagonistic to our community and frightening to concerned parents to locate a store selling firearms and live ammunition literally within 60 seconds walking distance to a school entrance.
This is an issue of judgment, not legality. Under the Virginia State Code, Fairfax County does not have the authority to deny the gun shop a use permit to operate in the facility nor to require the gun shop owner to vacate the premises and terminate its lease. Under the federal law that is intended to create a gun free zone within a 1,000 feet around public, parochial and private schools, there is a huge exception that allows a federally-licensed firearm dealer to operate a commercial storefront within that zone.
Nevertheless, while the NOVA Gun Shop and the landlord may have a legal right to operate this facility in this location, it is apparent that good judgment and a reasonable concern for children's safety were absent in this situation.
The McLean community is understandably outraged by the decision to locate the gun shop next to an elementary school. I congratulate the many concerned residents who are actively protesting this bad decision.
In the coming days, I will continue to explore whether there are any options we can pursue under federal, state or county law that could remove the gun shop from this location. I will also offer to work with the landlord and gun shop owner to explore constructive solutions to terminate the lease and to relocate the gun shop to a more appropriate location. In the interim, I will stand alongside concerned parents, our state legislators and community leaders to continue to express loudly and clearly that this is a situation that cannot be tolerated.