Virginia House Democrats on Thursday passed a slew of familiar gun control proposals — most of which previously had been vetoed by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
But this time, the bills, if they also pass the Democratic-led Senate, will head to a governor who’s already voiced her support for many of them.
Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, who introduced a bill to ban the purchase and sale of assault-style weapons in Virginia, said these types of weapons “have no place in our communities.”
“There’s a real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this issue,” Helmer told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.
“We believe that weapons similar to those I carried in Iraq and Afghanistan have no place in our communities and (Republicans) want our communities to be war zones … We’re not okay with that.”
Throughout her campaign last year, Gov. Abigail Spanberger promised she would sign what she called “commonsense gun violence prevention bills.” At the time, her campaign confirmed that meant an assault weapons ban.
Other gun control bills that passed the House on Thursday include measures that seek to require safe firearm storage in homes with children, ban guns from mental hospitals and keep illegal guns out of the hands of convicted domestic abusers.
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A couple of Republican delegates voiced opposition to the gun control bills on the House floor Thursday.
“This bill is what we call a lawyer’s dream,” said House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore.
“Somebody’s going to make a lot of money on this bill, because it blatantly defies what the Supreme Court precedent set out in Bruen,” Kilgore continued, referring to the landmark Supreme Court decision holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
In a conversation with reporters following the vote Thursday, Helmer and Del. Nadarius Clark, D-Suffolk, mostly sidestepped questions about the Supreme Court precedent but noted that last year, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Maryland’s ban on assault weapons.
“We’re concerned about keeping our community safe, and right now that’s making sure that we can have responsible gun ownership and making sure that we are educating folks as well,” Clark said. “If you look at the slew of gun violence prevention bills that we are pushing through and that we have voted on today, that is at the core, that we are making sure we are keeping communities safe from gun violence.”
https://www.dailypress.com/2026/02/07/virginia-house-gun-control/
