Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger chose not to sign a sweeping gun and magazine ban into law on Monday, instead opting to send the legislation and several other gun control bills back to the General Assembly with proposed amendments. If those amendments are adopted by the Democrat majority in the House and Senate bills will still take effect on July 1, 2026, but the move gives Spanberger and Democrats the opportunity to avoid headlines like “Governor Bans Guns” a week before a statewide referendum on redistricting that could give Dems a 10-1 advantage in Virginia’s congressional representation.
Spanberger waited until the last minue on Monday night to announce her decision on several gun control bills, including the bill banning so-called assault firearms and “large capacity” magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition.
VIRGINIA UPDATE: The governor has asked the General Assembly to amend multiple gun control bills, including the “assault weapon” and magazine ban ones (the requested texts are not currently available): pic.twitter.com/BcMO4ukJ34
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) April 14, 2026
Former delegate Tim Anderson posted the governor’s proposed revisions to HB 217 early Tuesday morning, and if anyone harbored hopes that Spanberger would water down the legislation they’re going to be disappointed.
Got my hands on Hb217.
I am posting so everyone has it. I need to read it carefully – but at fist glance – the “assault weapons” ban seems to be intact with expansion of what an assault weapon is. This appears to have made what the general assembly passed worse for gun owners.… pic.twitter.com/ZMerfjGBfx
— Tim Anderson (@AssocAnderson) April 14, 2026
As The Reload’s Stephen Gutowski pointed out on Monday evening, the governor’s decision to hold off on signing these bills isn’t mean to reassure or mollify gun owners.
Important to note that Governor Spanberger’s (D.) amendments aren’t necessarily making these laws more moderate. This one eliminates an exception to the hospital carry ban for those with written permission to carry from the hospital. https://t.co/70AnDvfacf
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) April 14, 2026
Spanberger didn’t opt for trying to amend every gun control bill approved by the legislature this year. Among the bills she did sign into law are HB 21 and SB 27, which are meant to make it easier to sue firearm industry members for the criminal misuse of their products; HB 40, which bans the manufacture and possession of “plastic firearms”, unfinished frames and receivers, and unserialized firearms; and HB 110, which imposes a $500 fine and potential towing of any vehicle when someone leaves a firearm visible from outside.
It will take some time to wade through all of Spanberger’s proposed amendments, and as of Tuesday morning many of them are not yet available to look at on the Virginia legislature’s website. At the moment, though, I don’t see anything for gun owners to celebrate.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League’s bill tracker has a list of all the legislation opposed by the group, and you can click through each individual bill to find its latest status. As far as I can tell, the governor didn’t veto a single gun control bill, which is exactly what Second Amendment advocates expected. It doesn’t look like she allowed any gun-related bills to become law without her signature either. Spanberger either approved bills outright or offered revisions that are almost certain to be accepted by the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates and state Senate.
The Department of Justice has vowed to sue the state over the adoption of any ban on so-called assault firearms and “large capacity” magazines, and could take action against any number of other anti-2A bills once they’ve received final approval, but that litigation (and any lawsuits filed by 2A organizations as well) will have to wait until the legislature has acted on Spanberger’s recommendations. The governor’s late-night actions may have prevented many of these bills from making headlines today, but Virginia gun owners shouldn’t’ think that the threats to our Second Amendment rights have disappeared, or even delayed beyond July 1.
***UPDATE***
The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, released a statement from Executive Director John Commerford blasting Spanberger’s “desperate ploy.”
Governor Spanberger’s last-minute amendments to these gun control bills—slipped in during the dead of night—are nothing more than a desperate ploy to prop up her radical redistricting referendum by delaying action until after Election Day.
These changes don’t fix the bills; they merely attempt to rebrand blatant violations of law-abiding Virginians’ Second Amendment rights. Such cynical political maneuvers reveal not only her contempt for constitutional freedoms, but also her disregard for the hundreds of thousands of responsible gun owners across the Commonwealth. Our message to the Governor remains the same.
We’ll see you in court.
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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