Dogwood Weekly: What happened this week

Happy Sunday, Virginia 

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ICYMI: 5 things that happened this week…

1. Gun policy is top issue for Virginia voters: A Washington Post-Schar poll finds gunpolicy is the top issue for Virginia voters just one month before the election. That may bode well for Democrats, who have seized on the issue in the aftermath of the May mass shooting in Virginia Beach. Three of four voters rank gun policy as a “very important” voting issue, and majorities support reforms championed by Democrats, like assault weapons bans and limiting handgun purchases to one per month. -Washington Post
   
    
2. Karen Mallard: Virginia Beach victims must be “honored with action”: In the aftermath of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Karen Mallard took a grinder to her husband’s new AR-15. She sawed it in half to make a point about gun control in a campaign video that went viral. “Gun violence is real, but I don’t want it to happen here — where we live — so we’ve got to do some things to stop it,” Mallard, then a candidate in a Democratic congressional primary, said in a TV interview. The stunt was criticized by gun rights groups, which gleefully reported it to the ATF for creating an illegal short barrel rifle. But this tale doesn’t end with ridicule from the far-right. The painful, real “gotcha” moment, one which Mallard never wanted to be right about, happened one year later, less than one mile from her house in Virginia Beach. -The Dogwood
   
   
3. Richmond’s graduation rate drops again: The capital of Virginia’s already state-low high school graduation rate has dipped again, according to new data from the Virginia Department of Education. Just 7 in 10 Richmond seniors finished high school on time last year, down from 3 in 4 the year prior. The data also shows 24% of students who would have graduated dropped out. -Washington Post
   
   
4. Dunnavant called for ‘bump stock’ ban in TV ad, a proposal she voted against in the Senate: State Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant (R-Henrico) says in a TV ad that she supports a federal ban on bump stocks, devices that allow continuous firing of a semiautomatic firearm with one trigger pull. But as Everytown for Gun Safety pointed out, Dunnavant voted no on that issue just last year, as a member of the Virginia General Assembly. Richmond Times-Dispatch
   
    
5. It’s super expensive to live in Northern Virginia, but it could be worse: Six of the top 10 most expensive zip codes in Virginia are … drum roll, please … in Arlington. 22209 in Rosslyn was Virginia’s most expensive zip code with an average rent of $2,718 per month. Arlington also grabbed No. 3 (22201), No. 4 (22202), No. 5 (22203), No. 7 (22207), and No. 10 (22206). All of the remaining spots were taken by other Northern Virginia towns. But hey, it’s not as bad as Washington, D.C., which occupied most of the top 10 spots for the entire Mid-Atlantic region. Only one Virginia zip code, 22209, made that list, ranking fourth behind three D.C. zip codes. And neither D.C. nor Arlington have much on Manhattan or Los Angeles, where some zips have average rents in excess of $5K. -Patch.com