There Are No ‘Moderate’ Democrats When it Comes to Gun Rights

Virginia’s Gov. Abigail Spanberger is determined to make her mark in the Old Dominion. She campaigned for office as a moderate Democrat, but Virginians are learning quickly that they’ve been hoodwinked. The reaction is astounding.

A recent poll conducted by George Mason University and The Washington Post found that Gov. Spanberger earned the highest disapproval rating from Virginians of any governor since 1994. Forty-six percent of Virginians disapprove of Gov. Spanberger’s job performance, just three months into the job. To put that into perspective, Gov. Spanberger won by 15 points in her race against former Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Her performance is also a glaring contrast to former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 53-39 job approval rating at the same point in his administration, according to Fox News.

Chief among those headwinds are two issues that the firearm industry is tracking very closely. First, Gov. Spanberger is expected to sign into law SB 749, which would unconstitutionally ban the purchase of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs), or the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles — the most common rifle in America — as well as semiautomatic shotguns used for hunting and home defense and many pistols and standard capacity magazines. Gov. Spanberger is also considering a bill, HB21, that would attempt to circumvent the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to allow frivolous lawsuits against firearm industry members for the criminal misuse of firearms by remote third parties.

Add to that, Gov. Spanberger is backing a referendum effort to gerrymander the Congressional districts in Virginia that would bring a new hyper-partisan Virginia congressional delegation to Congress. If successful, it would change Virginia’s 11 Congressional districts that are currently comprised of six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats and just one Republican.

Playing Politics with Votes

While Gov. Spanberger and her redistricting backers claim this referendum, for which voting is underway, is in reaction to other states drawing new district lines in their own states. But that contrasts with what she said in 2019 about gerrymandering for political gain.

“Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority,” Gov. Spanberger wrote on X, according to Fox News. That’s flipped. Now, she’s pitching the gerrymandering referendum to Virginians as a “temporary” effort.

But that “temporary” effort would have permanent effects. Democrats want to gain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. If Gov. Spanberger’s gerrymandering plan is successful, it alone would be enough to switch control of Congress, which is why it is being pursued. It would usher in another era of politically-driven impeachments of President Donald Trump. It would also do to the United States what Gov. Spanberger is doing to Virginia with gun control. They would ban entire classes of commonly owned firearms and unconstitutionally rob Americans of their right to keep and bear arms.

Polls conducted in the days before Virginians go to the polls show that gerrymandering in Virginia isn’t as popular as Gov. Spanberger bet on. One poll showed just over half of likely voters support the measure. The only poll that counts, though, is the one where ballots are counted, and early voting turnout already topped 676,502 ballots statewide, topping the early voting totals for the gubernatorial race last year that stood at 658,471. Rural, Republican-leaning counties showed strong early turnout. However, turnout will be the key to deciding whether Gov. Spanberger and the Virginia legislature can push their “temporary” gerrymandering measure.

The entire scheme is still subject to legal challenge. Two court rulings were appealed to Virginia’s Supreme Court, but a decision won’t be published until after the April 21 vote.

Virginians Buying Guns, Not Gun Control

Virginians aren’t happy with the gun control legislation that Gov. Spanberger is expected to sign into law, either. This is another area in which Gov. Spanberger is revealing she’s far from the moderate she once claimed to be.

Background checks for firearms in Virginia have risen by double digits in year-over-year comparisons. Local firearm retailers are turning training classrooms into temporary armories to handle the surge in sales. That’s happening as a direct response to the threat on Second Amendment rights by antigun lawmakers to violate both the Commonwealth’s Constitution and the U.S. Constitution.

There were 53,770 background checks conducted for the sale of a firearm in January 2026. That was up by nearly 26 percent over the 42,677 that were completed just a year earlier. February 2026 saw the same increase, but with increased percentages. In February, 65,501 background checks were completed, which was a 55 percent increase over the 42,193 completed just a year before. The pattern continued into March when 79,383 background checks were done, a 70 percent increase over the 46,659 in March 2025.

Adding that up, there were 198,654 background checks completed in Virginia for the sale of a firearm compared to 131,529 during the same three months last year. That’s a 51 percent increase so far. That trajectory is expected to continue until the expected legislation goes into effect in July.

Gov. Spanberger might have lied about how she intends to govern, but the numbers don’t. Virginians don’t like what she’s doing to the Commonwealth that gave the nation George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They also don’t like what she’s doing with the right to keep and bear arms the Founding Fathers knew was vital to ensuring Virginians remain free.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.