[ad_1]
A year ago, Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, vetoed a slew of gun reforms. They included an assault weapons ban, a prohibition on abusive dating partners owning guns, and a minimum age for rifle purchases. When Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected to succeed him in November, giving the party a governing trifecta, Democratic state lawmakers saw the opportunity for a redo — and took it.
By the time the legislative session ended on March 13, Democrats had pushed 25 gun reforms to the finish line. They passed a ban on assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. They approved penalties for leaving unsecured guns around children, and they voted for an expansion of the state’s red flag law that would allow doctors, family members, and school administrators to petition to temporarily remove guns from people at risk to themselves or others. Other bills would set minimum ages for handgun and rifle purchases and prohibit guns for people convicted of misdemeanor hate crime assault.
One of the bills that passed would make it a crime to leave a visible gun in an unattended vehicle. This measure might have prevented the March 12 shooting at Old Dominion University, where one person was killed and two others were injured. The perpetrator used a .22 caliber handgun that had been stolen from a car a year ago.
Lawmakers also passed bans on plastic and unserialized firearms and guns in hospitals, and they took steps toward establishing the Virginia Gun Violence Prevention Center, joining 15 other states that have similar offices.
Spanberger has until April 13 to sign the bills, veto them, or seek amendments. In a statement to The Trace, a spokesperson didn’t say which action Spanberger will take, but said she is proud of lawmakers’ efforts. “As the mother of three daughters in Virginia public schools and a former federal law enforcement officer who carried a gun every day, Governor Spanberger knows how important it is to make sure kids and families are safe,” the spokesperson said. “The Governor is grateful for the efforts of legislators and advocates to address gun violence in Virginia communities, and she is carefully reviewing all legislation on her desk.”
State Senator Saddam Azlan Salim, who sponsored the assault weapons ban, said he doesn’t expect Spanberger to veto any of the bills because they were crafted in consultation with policy staffers in her office. “For us, this was a very well thought-out success,” Salim told The Trace. Lawmakers in the gun violence prevention caucus met and divvied up the bills among them so the load was equally distributed. That’s different from past sessions when some lawmakers sponsored as many as five bills each. Salim had four gun reform bills vetoed by Youngkin last session. This year, no one had sponsored more than two.
Lawmakers got feedback from the state Attorney General’s Office to help ensure the measures would withstand legal challenges if enacted, Salim said. This was particularly important for the assault weapons ban, which has drawn the most media attention of all the bills. Salim said he conferred with police and the military to carve out exemptions for those groups.
Gun reform was one of lawmakers’ top three priorities this session, Salim said, after data centers’ impact on the environment and a series of constitutional amendments that would, among other things, redraw congressional districts. Around mid-session, gun reform moved to the fore. Spanberger’s election last fall gave the majority-Democrat General Assembly another chance to refine the state’s gun laws after two punishing sessions, in 2024 and 2025, that saw Youngkin veto a total of 42 gun reform bills.
During this session, which ran from January to March, lawmakers reintroduced 16 of the 18 gun reform bills that Youngkin vetoed last year, and got 14 of them passed. Two of the reintroduced bills failed, including a five-day waiting period to buy firearms and tightening standards for recognizing out-of-state concealed carry permits.
Other failed bills would have levied a tax on silencers and required a license from the state police to purchase a gun, a policy known as permit-to-purchase. Salim said lawmakers were selective about which measures to support because they didn’t want to do too much too fast. “We would have been seen as going too far with too many wins at the same time,” he said. “We realized, ‘Wait a minute. We’ve got the next four years.’”
Spanberger’s term isn’t up until 2030. But then she must leave office because state law prohibits a governor from serving two consecutive terms. So while Democrats have three more chances to pass bills under her tenure, that may be all they have if a Republican is elected.
At least one pro-gun bill passed this session. It was a Republican-backed measure that would allow immediate survivors of some deceased law enforcement officers to purchase their service handguns. Several other pro-gun bills failed, including proposals to remove the one-handgun-a-month purchasing limit and allow abuse survivors to carry guns in certain gun-free zones.
Andrew Goddard, legislative director for the gun violence prevention group Virginia Center for Public Safety, cheered the raft of legislation. He’s been advocating for gun reform at the State Capitol since his son was seriously injured in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. “I started off with 12 straight years of nothing,” he told The Trace, “and then six years where we had a total stalemate — the gun lobby got nothing, we got nothing.” This record-breaking session feels “great,” he said. But he fears that the next governor could come along and reverse these gains, which is what happened to reforms enacted in Florida after the 2018 Parkland shooting.
“Virginia usually swings backwards and forwards to some extent,” Goddard said. “So yeah, I’m very concerned.”
Meanwhile, gun rights groups are mobilizing. The National Rifle Association is rallying members to call Spanberger’s office and urge her to veto the bills, which the group calls “extreme anti-gun measures.” Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, vowed to sue. “All these laws are aimed at either making guns harder to get for good people, harder for good people to carry, or discouraging guns and accessories being sold in Virginia due to potential frivolous lawsuits,” Van Cleave told The Trace. That last bit refers to a bill passed this session that would require gunmakers and sellers to report suspicious activity like trafficking, straw purchasing, and theft. If enacted, it would create a state-level pathway to sue the gun industry, which enjoys immunity from most federal litigation.
Van Cleave said he plans to challenge the assault weapons ban all the way to the Supreme Court, where he expects it to be struck down. “They have already said guns in common use for lawful purposes are protected,” he said, referring to Supreme Court rulings that guns can’t be banned if they are in “common use.” Gun rights advocates have argued that since tens of millions of semiautomatic rifles are in circulation, they qualify as being commonly owned and are protected under the Second Amendment
“AR-15s are the most popular rifle in America and have been for quite a few years,” Van Cleave said. “Magazine capacity bans were just struck down in D.C. We expect SCOTUS and the Virginia Supreme Court will agree.”
The Supreme Court has declined to hear challenges to state-level assault weapon bans, most recently in Maryland in 2025, leaving in place lower court rulings that upheld the restrictions. But in his denial of the Maryland case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the court “should address the AR-15 issue soon.”
[ad_2]
Source link