Why Change That Law (Part Duex)

A while back I was reading through the new statutory changes (in place as of July 01) and found something which seemed like tweeking the statute just for tweeking's sake and when I posted it ya'll were kind enough to provide an explanation of why the statute was changed. So, I've got another one for you.

18.2-308.1(B) as currently constituted:

B. If any person possesses any firearm designed or intended to expel a projectile by action of an explosion of a combustible material while such person is upon (i) any public, private or religious elementary, middle or high school, including buildings and grounds; (ii) that portion of any property open to the public and then exclusively used for school-sponsored functions or extracurricular activities while such functions or activities are taking place; or (iii) any school bus owned or operated by any such school, he shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony; however, if the person possesses any firearm within a public, private or religious elementary, middle or high school building and intends to use, or attempts to use, such firearm, or displays such weapon in a threatening manner, such person shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years to be served consecutively with any other sentence.

This is being changed into 18.2-308.1(B) & (C):

B. If any person possesses any firearm designed or intended to expel a projectile by action of an explosion of a combustible material while such person is upon (i) any public, private or religious elementary, middle or high school, including buildings and grounds; (ii) that portion of any property open to the public and then exclusively used for school-sponsored functions or extracurricular activities while such functions or activities are taking place; or (iii) any school bus owned or operated by any such school, he shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony.

C. If any person possesses any firearm designed or intended to expel a projectile by action of an explosion of a combustible material within a public, private or religious elementary, middle or high school building and intends to use, or attempts to use, such firearm, or displays such weapon in a threatening manner, such person shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony and sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years to be served consecutively with any other sentence.

Okay. Got it figured out. Halfway through writing the post I realized that the same bill which does this also changes the list of violent felonies under 17.1-805 (for sentencing guidelines) so that the only violent felony under 18.2-308.1 is the newly created subsection C. So, if an 18 year old kid is dumb enough to bring his hunting rifle to school to show it to his buddies he may end up with a felony, but it won't be a mandatory minimum 5 year, violent felony.