We’re still more than a month away from the start of the 2026 legislative session in Virginia, and while Democrats are keeping most of their gun control bills under wraps for now, we know that lawmakers have already been crafting a bill banning so-called assault weapons. State Sen. Scott Surovell has also hinted that Democrats will be introducing a permit-to-purchase measure similar to Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License, and that particular restriction is already getting a boost from gun control advocate and law professor Robert Spitzer.
In a new column for the Charlottesville Daily Progress, Spitzer argues that requiring permission from state or local governments to purchase a firearm has a long tradition in American history.
Critics may consider the law a modern intrusion on gun rights, but history tells a different story. Such measures were common among the states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Virginia. In 1899, the city of Richmond enacted this purchase licensing law: “No person shall purchase, or otherwise procure… any pistol … or pistol or rifle ammunition, unless and until he shall procure a permit from the chief of police granting permission to make such purchase or to procure the same for use as aforesaid…”
Oh, an ordinance in Richmond, Virginia that was put in place smack dab in the middle of the Jim Crow era? Well, I’m sure that law was never abused to deny certain residents the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights!
Spitzer abbreviated the ordinance to suit his argument, but here it is in full:
No person shall purchase, or otherwise procure as his own property or for temporary use any pistol, dirk, bowie knife, sling shot or any weapon of a like kind, or pistol or rifle ammunition, unless and until he shall procure a permit from the chief of police granting permission to make such purchase or to procure the same for use as aforesaid, which permit shall be filed with the person from whom such purchase or exchange is made; provided, that nothing in this section shall apply to the sale or exchange of low power rifles or rifle ammunition known or designated as 22-calibre, commonly used for target practice purposes.
The ordinance didn’t require a prospective pistol purchaser to go through any training before receiving the chief’s permission, and apparently that permit didn’t cost any money either… or perhaps more likely, the fee varied depending on who, exactly, was asking for one. There was also no list of criteria for the chief to use. It was entirely up to him whether someone got to legally purchase a pistol or not; a law that would be patently unconstitutional today.
It’s incredibly duplicitous of Spitzer to not even acknowledge the atmosphere of oppression that existed in Richmond and the state of Virginia at the time. More than 40,000 black residents of the Old Dominion would leave the state in the decade following the adoption of this ordinance, hoping to find some place where they would not be subject to discriminatory laws like the one approvingly cited by the professor.
Spitzer also claims these laws were common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which, even if true, would be too late to be of much use in conducting an analysis of the national tradition of gun ownership in 1791 or 1868. But Spitzer also argues that similar laws can be traced back to long before the United States was a country.
Despite contrary impressions, gun licensing is an old policy tool dating back to the 1600s in America. As governments grew in the 19th century, along with more sophisticated technology, communications and record-keeping, modern licensing schemes emerged and became widespread, especially after the Civil War. Its re-adoption in Virginia follows, not creates, history.
Yes, some of the ugliest history this nation has ever known.
Unfortunately, any permit-to-purchase law adopted by Democrats next year is likely to be upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, especially if it closely resembles or mirrors Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License, which was deemed by the Fourth Circuit to be constitutionally compliant despite the fact that an en banc panel of the appellate court didn’t even bother to look for historical analogues. For those judges, it was enough that the Supreme Court said in Bruen:
To be clear, nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ “shall-issue” licensing regimes, under which “a general desire for self-defense is sufficient to obtain a [permit].” Because these licensing regimes do not require applicants to show an atypical need for armed self-defense, they do not necessarily prevent “law-abiding, responsible citizens” from exercising their Second Amendment right to public carry. Rather, it appears that these shall-issue regimes, which often require applicants to undergo a background check or pass a firearms safety course, are designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” And they likewise appear to contain only “narrow, objective, and definite standards” guiding licensing officials, rather than requiring the “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion”—features that typify proper-cause standards like New York’s. That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.
The Court was explicit in limiting its language to permits dealing with public carry, not purchasing or possessing certain firearms, but that didn’t matter to the Fourth Circuit. As far as its concerned, if a “shall issue” license to carry is constitutionally kosher, a “shall issue” license to keep a pistol must be as well.
It’s even more unfortunate that the Supreme Court turned away the plaintiffs appeal in this case and let Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License remain in place despite the Fourth Circuit’s deeply flawed opinion. The Court’s inaction has only encouraged gun control activists to push for these laws in every state where Democrats are in a position to implement them, just as the Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 led to a deluge of Democrat-approved racially motivated laws governing the activities of black Americans in the South in the late 1800s… including their right to keep and bear arms.
I have no doubt that whatever permit-to-purchase scheme Democrats in Richmond come up with, it will be racially neutral on its face and “shall issue” in nature. I am equally sure that the law will still prove to be an impediment to countless Virginians who want or need to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep a handgun in the home, and that could have catastrophic consequences for those hoping to protect themselves from stalkers, abusers, or other known threats to their lives.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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