Here Are 12 Bills Democrats Just Passed To Trample Gun Rights in Virginia

Democrats have introduced 18 bills in the Virginia General Assembly to restrict gun rights since January. Twelve have already cleared both chambers—10 are before Gov. Abigail Spanberger and two more are awaiting enrollment before heading to her desk. Not one is cosponsored by a Republican.

1. Imposition of Civil Liability on the Firearms Industry

Senate Bill 27 allows anyone who has been injured as a result of the firearms industry not imposing “reasonable controls” on the sale of firearms to sue gun manufacturers. The bill defines “reasonable controls” as procedures that prevent the sale of firearms to people whom the firearm industry “has reasonable cause to believe is at substantial risk of using a [firearm] to harm themselves or unlawfully harm another.”

2. Red Flag Laws Expanded

House Bill 901 expands Virginia’s red flag laws by permitting immediate family members, intimate partners (including individuals “who, within the previous 12 months, was in a romantic, dating, or sexual relationship with the person”), school administrators, and licensed medical professionals, among others, to petition a judge for an emergency substantial risk order to prohibit the person subject thereto “from purchasing, possessing or transporting a firearm for the duration of the order.” The issuance of such orders is not limited to recent acts of violence directed at others, but “evidence of recent or ongoing abuse of controlled substances or alcohol.” Just last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in U.S. v. Hemani as to whether federal laws conditioning gun ownership on abstention from unlawful drug use violate the Second Amendment. 

3. Prohibition on Plastic Firearms

House Bill 40 outlaws the knowing manufacture, transfer, and possession of “any plastic firearm” and “any firearm that…is not detectable as a firearm by…X-ray machines.” The motivation for this legislation is to crack down on untraceable, 3D-printed ghost guns, which were responsible for two shootings (only one of which involved any casualties) and five deaths in Virginia since 2013, according to data compiled by the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.

4. Gun Buyback Programs Mandated

House Bill 702 requires that “each county or city law-enforcement agency shall…develop policies and procedures to implement either a firearm give-back program or a firearm buy-back program by January 1, 2028.” An unintended consequence of this bill is that it incentivizes the fabrication of new, cheap firearms for sale to the buyback program, which will come at the expense of Virginia taxpayers. 

5. Firearms Prohibited in All Public Buildings

Senate Bill 272 bans Virginians from carrying any firearms in “any building owned or leased by the Commonwealth,” such as the University of Virginia and the Virginia Capitol building, as well as Capitol Square. This is the same square where the Virginia Citizens Defense League gathered nearly 1,000 gun rights activists one week after the bill’s introduction without incident.

6. No Firearms Allowed in Mental Health Hospitals

Senate Bill 173 forbids the possession of a weapon in hospitals that render mental health or developmental services. This law would apply to one-third of the more than 150 Virginia inpatient hospitals, including the state’s 43 private psychiatric hospitals and the nine behavioral health facilities operated by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.

7. Firearms Prohibited Near Polling Places

House Bill 909 outlaws carrying firearms within 100 feet of a polling place while the polls are open and ballots are being counted and within one hour of opening or closing. The bill also outlaws carrying firearms within 100 feet of any building “used as the principal office of the general registrar…an additional registration site…a meeting place for the local electoral board…a meeting place for the State Board to ascertain the results of an election…[or] a central absentee precinct,” and makes no mention of these restrictions being limited to certain times of the year. 

8. Firearm Ownership Restricted for Certain Misdemeanor Offenses

Senate Bill 160 expands the federal prohibition on firearms possession by those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence against a spouse to include intimate partners. Virginia would join 24 other states that have closed the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” according to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. 

9. Young Adults May Not Possess Surrendered Firearms

Senate Bill 38 requires the subjects of restraining orders to transfer their firearms, which they are prohibited from keeping, to those at least 21 years of age and who do not live with them. These requirements are not as restrictive as California’s, which require the subjects of restraining orders to turn their firearms into local law enforcement or sell them to licensed gun dealers.

10. Firearm Storage Requirements

Senate Bill 348 requires gun owners living with children to store their firearms in “storage device[s] with a combination lock, coded lock, or biometric lock.” The bill, as introduced, would have required loaded firearms to be stored in biometric storage devices, specifically, which typically cost over $100. 

11. ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

Senate Bill 749 would outlaw the sale of “assault firearms,” which the latest version of the bill defines as “a semi-automatic…rifle or pistol…with a fixed magazine capacity in excess of 15 rounds.” This would effectively outlaw the sale of popular firearms like AR-15–style rifles (for which a 30-round magazine is standard) and the SIG Sauer P365 (which accepts up to 21-round magazines). The bill would also ban the sale of magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. The bill was passed by the Virginia Senate after a party-line vote on Monday.

Sen. Saddam Salim (D–Merrifield) wrote S.B. 749 as his “answer to the gun violence epidemic,” citing the mass shooting of 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007 and of 12 people at Virginia Beach in 2019. There were 475 gun homicides in Virginia in 2023, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is a little over half the number of car fatalities that year. (Salim has not advanced legislation to restrict access to assault vehicles, aka, pickup trucks, which are disproportionately responsible for pedestrian and cyclist deaths.) 

Some gun-rights activists have seized on the fact that Salim emigrated from Bangladesh when he was 10 years old to blame immigrants for Virginia’s latest restrictions on gun rights. This accusation ignores a basic fact: The bills passed because of Democratic votes, not immigrant ones. 

The House version of S.B. 749 was supported by all 21 Democratic state senators and opposed by all 19 Republicans on Monday. All but two of these Democrats—Salim and Kannan Srinivasan (born in Chennai, India)—are native-born Americans, according to their official biographies.

12. The End of Open Carry

Senate Bill 727, introduced by Sen. Michael Jones (D–Richmond), outlaws carrying semiautomatic rifles and pistols whose magazines have a capacity of more than 10 rounds in “any…place of whatever nature that is open to the public.” The most popular pistols for concealed and open carry have a magazine capacity in excess of 10 rounds. So this law would effectively require gun owners who wish to open carry to pay several hundred dollars for a compliant, lower-capacity firearm. 

Spanberger has until 11:59 p.m. on April 13 to sign these bills into law. Considering she campaigned on gun control and pledged to sign such bills as recently as January 19, she’s likely to make good on her promise. Even if she doesn’t sign them, they will go into effect within 30 days of reaching her desk, so long as she doesn’t exercise her veto power.