Virginia has recently been featured in a lot of headlines about gun control, for all the wrong reasons. A number of them have mentioned a federal gun control bill pending in the U.S. Senate, sponsored by Tim Kaine (D) and Mark Warner (D) of Virginia. Dubbed “The Virginia Plan to Reduce Gun Violence Act of 2026,” it tries to portray Virginia as a gun control leader whose policies could serve as a model for the rest of the nation. But, like most firearm prohibition branding, this framing is not only untrue, it is the opposite the truth. Virginia, in reality, is the victim of a national gun control agenda, not the progenitor of one.
The latest slate of gun controls laws unleashed on Virginia by its Democrat-controlled legislature and governor are not some thoughtful or tailored set of policies that organically arose from Virginia’s unique public safety picture or the particular dynamics of its crime. Instead, it is grab bag of generic policies pushed by national gun control groups, approved by their billionaire donors, and modeled on a globalist paradigm arising in nations that have no constitutional rights to arms. Virginia is simply an opportunist expansion market for these concepts, not their origin point.
What is being cheered as “groundbreaking gun safety policy” was never part of a homegrown effort, nor was it ever for Virginia, by Virginia. National firearm prohibition groups don’t grade states based on their innovative local policies and responsiveness to local concerns. They grade them according to a predetermined slate of policies the groups hope to enact in every state. That opportunity in Virginia came in the form of Abigail Spanberger and the investment in her gubernatorial campaign of over $1 million dollars by billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety.
Everytown brags about itself as the pipeline for gun control gun control candidates from coast to coast. These candidates sign on to Everytown’s agenda, and in return, they receive massive amounts of financial support. It is top-down and cookie cutter in operation, AstroTurf in presentation.
As for “The Virginia Plan to Reduce Gun Violence Act of 2026,” don’t be fooled. This same federal bill with its core policies has been regurgitated in various forms since 2019, a time when Virginia was still a moderately pro-gun state.
Claiming the effort “would build on Virginia’s commonsense framework to reduce gun violence,” this latest 50-plus page federal legislation comes straight from the Everytown and Giffords playbook, and includes:
- An “assault weapons” ban to prohibit the sale, manufacture, and importation of semi-automatic firearms and magazines that have the ability to hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition.
- Rationing gun purchases to one handgun per month.
- A federal Red Flag firearm seizure law.
- Incentives for states to implement their own red flag laws.
- Penalizing lawful gun owners for lost or stolen firearms with arbitrary reporting requirements that can give rise to criminal penalties.
- One size fits all mandatory storage requirements.
- A ban on the purchase, sale, and possession of privately made firearms.
- More “gun-free zones” throughout the states.
This Virginia Plan is the California Plan, which is the Everytown Plan, which is the Bloomberg Plan, which is the Australia Plan. It has nothing to do with the citizens of Virginia or with the Old Dominion’s culture and values. What an ignominious fall from grace for a state that produced some of the most important and influential of America’s Founding Fathers. In evaluating this fall, it is important to recognize that the core elements are being driven, not by ordinary Virginians, but by globally orientated billionaires, national public interest groups, and a Democratic National Committee that would love to see Richmond morph into the San Francisco of the East Coast.
Beware the rhetorical shift and media narrative to flip the script and make an established national policy package appear more locally grounded and politically palatable, even though its underlying structure has remained unchanged for years.
Further beware that your state may be next. If it can happen in the cradle of American Constitutionalism and the home of NRA’s Headquarters, no gun owning American should believe it could never come home to him or her.
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