I love Virginia. I love its mountains, its farms, its small towns and the hunting traditions that have been passed from one generation to the next. I also happen to be a gun owner.
Those two things are not contradictory. In my experience, they go hand in hand because both reflect a culture that values personal responsibility, self-reliance, and individual liberty.
When Virginia’s lawmakers debated new restrictions on lawful firearm ownership, supporters believed they were taking meaningful steps to reduce “gun violence.” Many of us who own firearms believed something else would happen. We believed thousands of otherwise hesitant Virginians would decide it was time to exercise a constitutional right before it became more difficult to do so.
Gun stores filled up. Background checks surged. First-time buyers became gun owners and longtime shooters decided now was the time for a new one. FBI background check data, widely used as the best available indicator of gun sales, showed just how dramatic the response was.
Virginia’s background checks climbed roughly 70 percent in March compared with the previous year, nearly 80 percent in April, more than doubled in May. This June’s volume exceeded three times the previous June’s total as the July 1 deadline approached. While background checks aren’t the same as firearm sales, the trend is unmistakable. Thousands of Virginians decided they would rather lawfully exercise a constitutional right today than wonder whether they still could tomorrow.
Whether someone supported the legislation or opposed it, the outcome should give all of us something to think about. An effort intended to discourage lawful gun ownership encouraged many Virginians — including lots of first-timers — to go out and buy one instead. Often many times over.
I don’t think that was the result the anti-gunners were aiming for (pun intended).
When government signals that it wants to restrict a constitutional right, people often become more determined to exercise it. There’s nothing that makes an American want something more than the government telling him he can’t have it. My state became just the latest example, and to be clear I’m damned proud to be a Virginian because of it. Sic semper tyrannis indeed.
Thousands of law-abiding citizens jumped through the hoops. They completed the paperwork, passed the background checks and legally purchased firearms. They followed every law the Commonwealth put up to discourage them required.
That matters because we weren’t criminals exploiting loopholes. We were citizens willingly participating in a legal process. Too often, the public debate blurs the line between violent criminals and responsible gun owners, even though they have very little in common.
The Virginia gun owners I know are veterans, law enforcement officers, teachers, nurses, mechanics, farmers, pastors, small business owners and parents. We hunt because we love the outdoors. We shoot competitively because we enjoy mastering a skill. Some of us carry a firearm because we believe protecting our families is one of life’s most important responsibilities. What we share isn’t fear or anger. We share a commitment to doing things the right way.
As a Virginian and a gun owner, I don’t celebrate the increased firearm sales because I believe more guns automatically make us safer. I see something different. I see thousands of citizens choosing to exercise a constitutional right through the legal process. More importantly, I see no reason to believe law-abiding Virginians suddenly became the source of the violent crime that concerns us all.
We exercised our Second Amendment rights legally, just as the Constitution intended. Rights remain meaningful only when responsible people are willing to exercise them. That also means accepting the responsibility that comes with those rights.
If we ask our fellow Virginians to trust us with our freedoms, we should earn that trust every day. We should pursue quality training, practice safe storage, mentor new shooters, hunt ethically, and conduct ourselves in a way that reflects well on every responsible gun owner in the Commonwealth.
I also want to extend an olive branch to the Virginians who supported stricter gun laws.
I don’t believe most of you dislike gun owners, nor do I believe you wake up looking for ways to take away anyone’s freedoms. I believe many of you are responding to the same heartbreaking tragedies that affect all of us. When children are murdered, when families lose loved ones, or when violence tears apart a community, my heart breaks just as yours does. We may disagree about the solutions, but I don’t believe we disagree about the value of human life.
If your goal is to reduce violent crime, then it is my goal, too.
Let’s work together where we can. Let’s improve access to mental health care. Let us support law enforcement as they target violent repeat offenders. Let’s invest in mentoring young people before gangs and violence recruit them. Let’s encourage every gun owner to seek training, practice safe handling, and store firearms responsibly.
At the same time, I ask that those who advocate for additional restrictions recognize something that Virginia has demonstrated so clearly. Law-abiding citizens value this constitutional right deeply. When many believed that right might become more difficult to exercise, they exercised it through the legal process. They did exactly what responsible citizens are supposed to do.
The overwhelming majority of those new gun owners aren’t the source of the violence that concerns us all. They’re your neighbors, your coworkers, your fellow church members, and the parents sitting beside you at Friday night football games. They’re not the people terrorizing neighborhoods or preying on innocent victims. They’re ordinary Virginians exercising a constitutional freedom responsibly.
To my fellow Virginia gun owners, I have a simple challenge. Don’t let this moment end with the purchase of a (first or another) firearm. Let it begin there. Invite a curious neighbor to the range. Teach a first-time shooter with patience and humility. Be the safest person on the firing line and the most ethical hunter in the woods. Listen before you argue. Answer honest questions with respect instead of frustration.
The Second Amendment does not simply need defenders. It needs ambassadors.
If we truly believe this right matters, then let us become the kind of people who make that case without raising our voices. Let our character speak louder than our politics. Let our conduct make it impossible to confuse responsible gun owners with violent criminals.
Virginia’s recent experience should teach us more than a lesson about firearm sales. It should remind us that constitutional rights matter to millions of ordinary citizens. It should also remind us that every right carries a responsibility to strengthen the community around us.
The best argument for the Second Amendment will never be made in Richmond or Washington. It will be made every day by responsible Virginians who live with humility, integrity and respect for both their neighbors and the Constitution they cherish.
” I see something different. I see thousands of citizens choosing to exercise a constitutional right through the legal process.”
And there lies the issue. If the exercise of a constitutional right is tied to a law, those that create the law control the exercise of the constitutional right by creating law.
The founders laid out that laws could be created by, basically, giving this authority to congress (and to states also, more indirectly). But the founders never intended that ‘laws’ be used to control or regulate or infringe upon the rights of the people. To say this, the founding generation specifically laid out in writing 10 areas (first 10 amendments in the Bill Of Rights), pre-existing rights, human rights, natural human rights endowed by God (i.e. ‘creator’) where government was not to tread and intended those rights to be exercised freely. But today, we have ‘laws’ ‘by government’ that control or regulate, or infringe upon, the exercise of those rights that were clearly defined as someplace the government was not to tread.
The ‘government’ argument is basically, for example, “Hey, God never said you could have an AR-15 or other firearm, so there, we can create a law about it.” – its a stupid argument because although not specifically in God’s words, every human has a natural right to self-defense and there is no limit in that in how that defense can be enacted and the ‘at time of ratification’ method, and through all of human history, was by use of ‘arms’ and the understanding was, and naturally, basically any thing, as used in SCOTUS decision, ‘that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.’ This was the actual natural basic understanding of the founding generation and has existed through all of human history and even the ‘caveman’ and all capable mammals and primates and most of nature critters had a basic natural understanding of that in some form (i.e. caveman to fight in defense using a stick or rock, a dolphin knows to ram a predator shark on its under side, birds know to use their beaks to peck at predators or use their talons if they have them, a deer knows to raise up on its hind legs and strike with its front paws, etc… or flee). In other words using ‘arms’ and their possession in some form is not limited, its a natural human right and was clearly defined with ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.’ So, in reality ‘arms’ can be anything for ‘defence’ with no limit on what it can or can not be – so in reality, a firearm be it semi-auto or not are still ‘arms’.
Yet today, we have ‘laws’ controlling the exercise of that right by law-making that was never suppose to be used to control exercise of a constitutional, a natural, a human, right.
I can understand a law that says, for example, convicted violent criminals can not have a ‘firearm’ and that’s because they have violated other laws that government could create (i.e. laws against murder). But laws that preemptively control the exercise of the right for law abiding people and make them jump through hoops to exercise it or ban its exercise for law abiding people – yeah, those are a little more difficult to understand because they were never suppose to be and are directly contrary to what they founding generation intended.
Virginia Gun Owners– You EARNED This.
“Virginia’s AR-15 ban is running into serious trouble, but not for just one reason. The injunctions, lawsuits, statewide court clarification, massive gun sales surge, public resistance, and refusal from gun owners to let this law become normal all helped expose a much bigger issue: the government can pass a gun ban with a vote, but making it work requires compliance, silence, fear, and confusion.
In this video, we break down how Virginia’s AR-15 ban was blocked by injunctions, why the statewide clarification matters, how Virginia gun owners responded before the deadline, what the reported 241% surge in adjusted background checks really signals, and why this fight proves ‘We the People’ still have power when gun owners stay vigilant, organized, peaceful, and engaged.”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r95GBjR860Y
Woman’s Defensive Gun Use Proves Mag Bans Are Deadly.
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2lyjflYP3M
Mixed feelings here – if Virginians truly cared about their state they wouldn’t have elected a phony “centrist” as governor or a wannabe homicidal dreamer as attorney general. But they did and even though I have family in Virginia and hope for the best for them, I really want Virginians to get what they voted for and get it good and hard. The feedback from pain can be an excellent teaching tool.
Many Virginians question how she was elected. The biggest problem we have here are a few small geographic areas that have large voter pools. People that live in very densely populated areas. The densely populated areas create the problems because when you can’t enjoy life without treading on someone else nature kicks in, violence kicks in as a way of survival. When you live in a remote area with neighbors that are 1/8th of a mile away you rarely run into them or have problems, you have plenty of area to enjoy and do things. So the issues that come from Virginia is one where the people in the cities have more votes than the people in the rural areas. The people who live in rural areas enjoy firearms and have the area to do so (large ranges, sporting, hunting, protection, military like training). The people in the cities don’t have the area to enjoy firearms without hurting or harming someone else. When people in cities use firearms it is usually in one of two reason (self defense or murder) The people in the rural areas don’t live in any way the same lifestyle as people in the cities. Rural areas might take 40 minutes for a deputy on a shift with less 3 others to respond. The 40 minutes time to respond would feel like forever when someone trying to kill you. Where as a person who lives in a city has an officer probably within a 5 minutes of them which still feels like forever when someone is trying to kill you. But with 40 minutes you a less chance of surviving an attack. my point in for defense rural area people rely on firearms because the police aren’t there to save them. They have to save themselves which means they need what the police rely on when they come. City people don’t have the same experience because the police will be there in a short while (once called). But because more votes come from the areas with problems, they paint the picture in government that there is a huge firearm problem. That’s why we are in the place we are in. The density of the cities has surpassed that of the rest of the state. As liberals love to point out tumbleweeds don’t vote and unfortunately our lifestyles needs and desires are completely different.
BREAKING: Sen. Lindsey Graham Dead at 71.
ht* tps://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2026/07/12/sen-lindsey-graham-dead-at-71-n4954933
For those of you who did not know, Sen. Lindsey Graham is the reason Brett Kavanaugh became a SCOTUS justice that was known for his pro-2A ‘dissents’ while a lower court judge in the DC circuit – those ‘dissents’ ultimately helped form a substantial part of the framework used to defeat New York in 2022 resulting in what we today call the ‘Bruen’ decision (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen).
In 2018 Democrats were desperate to sink his nomination. It was a midterm election year, and Democrats wanted to postpone the confirmation until after the midterms, hoping that Democrats would reclaim the [congress] majority in November and that this would force Trump to nominate someone they approved of. They found this woman named Christine Blasey Ford who accused that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers, in an incident she placed sometime in 1982. They used that and had her testify…one little problem, the whole thing was a lie full of holes…for example, she couldn’t say how she got home that night or pin down when exactly the incident happened and none of the witnesses she identified could corroborate her account, but that did not stop the democrats from spinning up the left wing media to treat her as a credible, sympathetic witness [and victim] in her testimony while they cast Kavanaugh as a monster.
By the time Ford finished testifying, Kavanaugh looked finished too. The momentum had shifted hard against Kavanaugh, and Republicans panicked. Then Graham got his five minutes in the confirmation hearing, and changed everything and unloaded with facts telling how, by using the democrats own words, the democrats had conspired against Kavanaugh before Christine Blasey Ford was ever heard of, and a lot more.
The end result of Graham’s efforts, Brett Kavanaugh became a SCOTUS justice.
[note: Christine Blasey Ford Ford had initially been connected to an anonymous allegation circulating during Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. To get the timing down here, prior the confirmation hearing the democrats had already started their resistance conspiracy against Kavanaugh, before Ford was even known but their resistance was weak as they didn’t really have anything to use a ‘ammunition’, then suddenly during the confirmation hearings this anonymous allegation suddenly happens right when the democrats are loosing what little ground they held in their resistance. Anyway since then there has been information discovered which indicates democrat operatives actually created the ‘anonymous’ allegations for her. She then ‘came forward’ publicly by granting an exclusive, on‑the‑record interview to The Washington Post in mid‑September 2018. It was democrat operatives that contacted her to get her to come forth in that interview for The Washington Post, and the democrat operatives set it up. Following the Washington Post interview, Ford appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018 and delivered testimony which was not true or was full of holes. Despite remaining a ‘public figure of interest (mostly obscure)’ for a while after she has never presented even one piece or part of verifiable evidence of her claims against Kavanaugh, and despite years of ‘investigative journalism’ by left wing media and hired investigators there is not one shred of evidence that has come forth to substantiate her claims of sexual assault upon her by Kavanaugh.]
to add: There were also two other women that also made ‘sexual assault’ allegations against Kavanaugh… [one says though that Kavanaugh was not her attacker, but rather that Kavanaugh and another classmate at college were arranging for girls to be sexually assaulted after getting them drunk]. None of the claims of these other two, like the claims of Ford, has ever been substantiated with even one piece/part of evidence.
My first bar exam was taken in Virginia. Although I never practised there, i still have my license framed and displayed nevt to to one fromTexas.
Very good. The heads of our country and the individual states want nothing more than to disarm America and reduce us to slaves. Think, North Korea! Sadly the bible lets us know that at some point we will all be subdued. But, we know that we wont go quietly. We have rights we are NOT WILLING to just let wash away on our watch. God, please keep blessing our America with freedom from sea ti shining sea!