Virginia Gun Rights

On Monday, 7th District Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger announced she is running for Governor in 2025. She also released a slick ad to go with the announcement:

As Cam Edwards mentioned over on Bearingarms.com, she didn’t mention guns in the ad, going instead to what looked like a tried and true recipe for success when she made abortion the top issue in the ad. As someone who has lived in her district most of the time she has been in congress, she is no friend of gun owners as Cam pointed out:

Spanberger and her colleagues laid out a list of policy proposals the Biden Administration could undertake as part of its push to address gun violence through executive action. The proposed policies include:

• Instructing DoD and other federal agencies that purchase firearms to implement standards for procuring taxpayer-funded firearms only from manufacturers that agree to adopt a code of conduct. The code of conduct could include declining to sell military-grade weapons to civilians and only selling to responsible dealers who refuse to proceed with a sale without a completed background check — even when they are legally authorized to do so.

• Reevaluating the list of guns eligible for import under the “sporting purposes” exception, which could significantly reduce the import of dangerous assault weapons.

• Transferring authority over assault rifle exports back to the State Department from the Commerce Department, reversing the Trump Administration’s shift of authority to Commerce — which allowed a surge in exports of these deadly weapons.

• Encouraging the Federal Trade Commission to issue a policy statement on “unfair or deceptive” gun ads that falsely assert that firearm ownership increases household residents’ physical safety from gun violence.

• Directing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review its interpretation of the Tiahrt Amendment to expand the types of firearm trace data that can be released to the public — including to researchers, litigants, and journalists.

It’s possible that the issue of guns will come up in the Democrat primary as other candidates, including Richmond Mayor Lavar Stoney are expected to jump in to this race but based on the 2023 election, it is likely we are going to hear a lot about abortion until the GOP figures our how to respond to the claims the GOP want to ban all proceedures while the Democrats only want to go back to the Roe standard.  It will be up to gun owners to make sure Spanberger and other candidates tell voters whether they will go for far reaching gun bans like they did in 2020, or if they will be satisfied with the gun control that passed already.

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