Don’t let anyone ever tell you that the well-intended activism of any individual cannot translate into major change. It’s been a year for that, resulting in huge changes in the makeup of the Virginia state legislature, for starters. Now, that has spilled over into a second year ushered in by the efforts of Falls Church’s Carol Luten and her collaborators to strike a big blow for gun control in Richmond with results that will be seen on roads, driveways and byways throughout the commonwealth.

No bill with the slightest taint of restricting unbridled use and brandishing of guns ever had the slightest chance of making it out of the effectively-closed deliberations of subcommittees in the Virginia State Legislature until this year, when as the result of 15 new Democrats being swept into office last November, near parity has led to a perceptible attitude adjustment by everyone.

With a new law passed to record the vote in subcommittees for the first time, the bill that Luten persuaded Falls Church-based Del. Marcus Simon to introduce to authorize a license plate option for Virginians that reads, “Stop Gun Violence,” cleared the committee by a vote of 18 yes, 3 no and one abstention. Subsequently, it came to the House floor and passed, 89-8-1, following an amendment to have proceeds from the plates go to mental health services.

That was a move that Del. Simon opposed because, he said, it misplaced the issue, since only a small number of gun-related killings have been attributed to mental Don’t let anyone ever tell you that the well-intended activism of any individual cannot translate into major change. It’s been a year for that, resulting in huge changes in the makeup of the Virginia state legislature, for starters. Now, that has spilled over into a second year ushered in by the efforts of Falls Church’s Carol Luten and her collaborators to strike a big blow for gun control in Richmond with results that will be seen on roads, driveways and byways throughout the commonwealth.

No bill with the slightest taint of restricting unbridled use and brandishing of guns ever had the slightest chance of making it out of the effectively-closed deliberations of subcommittees in the Virginia State Legislature until this year, when as the result of 15 new Democrats being swept into office last November, near parity has led to a perceptible attitude adjustment by everyone.

With a new law passed to record the vote in subcommittees for the first time, the bill that Luten persuaded Falls Church-based Del. Marcus Simon to introduce to authorize a license plate option for Virginians that reads, “Stop Gun Violence,” cleared the committee by a vote of 18 yes, 3 no and one abstention. Subsequently, it came to the House floor and passed, 89-8-1, following an amendment to have proceeds from the plates go to mental health services.

That was a move that Del. Simon opposed because, he said, it misplaced the issue, since only a small number of gun-related killings have been attributed to mental