Virginia gun bills take aim at the Constitution

As a Virginia resident and a longtime advocate for the Second Amendment, I’ve spent decades covering the gun debate from every angle. I’ve spoken with lawmakers, law enforcement officers, gun owners and crime victims. And I can tell you this: What happened in Richmond this legislative session was both unnecessary and unconstitutional.

Virginia is the home of James Madison, who boasted that, unlike the monarchs of Europe who were “afraid to trust the people with arms,” the United States recognized the inherent right of the people to keep and bear them. It’s through that lens that we should look at our current situation.

Politicians in Richmond have advanced one of the most sweeping gun control packages our commonwealth has seen in years. Clearly, they don’t understand what the words “keep and bear” in our Second Amendment actually mean. Those words mean “it’s ours, and you can’t take it.” Supporters claim these bills are necessary to make our communities safer. But recent feedback from actual Virginians tells a very different story.

According to a new survey of Virginia voters, 90% say the criminal is responsible for violent crime. A firearm being used in the commission of a crime is only a tool for the havoc they cause, whether it’s a hammer or a handgun. That distinction is crucial.

Public safety starts with prosecuting violent crimes and putting offenders in prison. Dreaming up new restrictions on law-abiding citizens who already follow the rules should play no part in it and is against every principle of American freedom.

In fact, 63% of Virginians say tougher sentencing and better enforcement of existing laws is the most effective way to reduce crime. Only 16% believe adding new gun regulations will make the biggest difference. That’s not close, and we shouldn’t tolerate these infringements from a moral standpoint or a constitutional one. We already have the necessary gun laws on the books; what we should do is actually enforce them.

Just look at Senate Bill 749, which now awaits Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s signature to become law. The bill would impose a broad and unconstitutional ban on a number of commonly owned guns under the politically loaded and vague label of “assault firearms” — a phrase that is completely meaningless. The result is that Virginians would no longer be able to purchase or transfer some of the most popular firearms in the country, and that’s just the first step towards prohibiting their possession too. Reclassifying and banning widely owned firearms based on arbitrary criteria does not disarm criminals. It penalizes peaceable citizens who have complied with every regulation already on the books. And voters know it.

Sixty percent of Virginians oppose an “assault weapons” ban. Strong majorities oppose gun-related taxes which disproportionately impact regular families. Pricing a constitutional right out of reach for working adults isn’t justice, and it’s not about public safety. It’s political retribution for exercising a right too many Democratic lawmakers find objectionable.

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There are also efforts underway to undermine federal law which protects lawful businesses such as family-owned gun ranges and firearm manufacturers. This is not what we want, and it’s not who we are. The right to self-defense is not a fringe idea. It’s a mainstream value deeply rooted in our constitutional tradition.

Public safety and constitutional liberty are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they go hand in hand. Violent crime is plunging across the country and commonwealth, while the number of guns in the hands of lawful owners is at an all-time high. Spanberger should veto these bills and work to keep Virginia safe and free instead of fruitlessly searching for security at the expense of our fundamental civil rights.

Cam Edwards of Farmville has covered the Second Amendment for 20 years as a broadcast and online journalist, and serves on the board of directors for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

 

NSSF Calls Out Real Threat to Public Safety, and It’s Not Guns

To hear the urban elite tell it, the problem in our country is that there are just too many guns. We need to curtail that, to discourage people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms, and make it so that only certain, approved parties have firearms lawfully.

It’s funny how they keep saying it despite the fact that we’ve got more gun ownership than ever before, more people carrying guns than ever before, and violent crime is down over the last few years. Weird.

Yet it is an unfortunate fact that horrible things do keep happening. There are bad people out there who want to hurt others.

And yeah, something needs to be done about them. As the NSSF’s Larry Keane recently pointed out, though, the problem isn’t lawful gun owners. It’s the people who refuse to prosecute those who provide guns unlawfully.

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Post Office Proposing Rule to Allow Americans to Mail Handguns

On April 2, 2026, the U.S. Postal Service will post a proposed rule revising “mailing standards for firearms” to allow “lawful handguns to be mailed” in a manner similar to long guns and shotguns.
On January 15, 2026, Breitbart News reported the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion indicating a ban against mailing handguns violates the Second Amendment.

Today, the Postal Service made clear their pending proposed rule is an attempt to comply with the OLC’s opinion:

On January 15, 2026, the OLC at the Department of Justice issued a Memorandum Opinion for the Attorney General concluding that Section 1715 of title 18 U.S. Code “is unconstitutional as applied to constitutionally protected firearms, including handguns, because it serves an illegitimate purpose and is inconsistent with the Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.” Constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 1715…OLC further concluded that the “Postal Service should modify its regulations to conform with the scope of the Second Amendment as described in [the OLC] opinion.”

…The Postal Service defers to OLC’s judgment as to the lawful scope of this criminal statute and worked in consultation with OLC to develop the proposed revisions to our mailability regulations…The proposed revisions expand the scope of mailable firearms compared to the existing regulations by allowing lawful handguns to be mailed under the same terms and conditions as lawful rifles and shotguns.

The Postal Service will accept comments on the proposed rule change for 30 days after it is published.

An Interview with The AK Guy, GOP Candidate for U.S. House, Brandon Herrera

By Lee Williams

SAF Investigative Journalism Project

Special to Liberty Park Press

Brandon Herrera, the GOP’s official candidate for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, may know more about guns and gun rights than any member of Congress.

Herrera, who’s known as “The AK Guy,” has millions of followers on X, YouTube, and Instagram, who tune him in regularly for two reasons: He knows what he’s talking about and he’s entertaining as hell.

Perhaps President Donald J. Trump said it best in his recent endorsement:

“Today I am endorsing America First Patriot, Brandon Herrera, who is running to represent the wonderful people of Texas’ 23rd Congressional District. Brandon is strongly supported by many Highly Respected MAGA Warriors in Texas, and Republicans in the U.S. House. As your next Congressman, he will work tirelessly to advance our MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN Agenda. Brandon will fight hard to Grow the Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Advance MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Safeguard our Elections, Champion School Choice, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Support our Brave Military, Veterans, and Law Enforcement, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment. Brandon Herrera has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Representative from Texas’ 23rd Congressional District — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN,” President Trump posted on social media.

Recently, Herrera took some time answering questions about his life, candidacy and the Second Amendment.

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Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
— Patrick Henry

Anti-Gunner Offers Cartoonish Version of U.S. History to Demand Civilian Disarmament

At one of the two No Kings protests held in Richmond, Virginia this past weekend, one of the speakers urged attendees to go out and buy a gun and exercise their Second Amendment rights. There was no call to violence in his statement, just a call to arms.

I’m not sure how well that comment went over with those in attendance, but I’m pretty sure that if California writer Matt Stone had been in the audience he would have turned tomato-faced with rage. In a diatribe for the Davis Vanguard, Stone has taken aim at “the gun,’ which, in his mind, has primarily (and perhaps only) been a tool of oppression for hundreds of years.

To understand the American obsession with firearms, you have to strip away the nostalgia and look at the ledger. The gun was the specific technology required to seize a continent and build an economy. It was the instrument that turned “uninhabited” land into private property and human beings into chattel.

The Second Amendment was not drafted in a vacuum of philosophical abstraction. It was drafted to protect the state militias, whose primary function, explicitly cited in the text, was to execute the “Law of the Union” and suppress “Insurrections.” In the language of the time, that meant one thing: killing Native Americans to clear the land and terrorizing enslaved Africans to keep the labor force in check.

I could devote this entire post to debunking just this paragraph, but I’ll settle for the Cliff’s Notes version since there’s so much more stupidity to cover. Chattel slavery existed long before the musket ever came into existence, and the African slavers who were the source of the millions of souls trapped in bondage weren’t dependent on firearms.

The Second Amendment was drafted, in part, to ensure that militias, which were comprised of every able-bodied male from young adulthood to old age, would not be destroyed by an act of Congress, but it was also meant to ensure that the people’s right to keep and bear arms outside of those militia purposes would not be infringed. Stone is simply off his rocker when he claims that “insurrections” only meant targeting Native Americans and “terrorizing” slaves. Even if Stone had referred to putting down slave revolts (which did fall under “insurrections”), it’s just flat out false to say those were the only “insurrections” in the colonies where the militia was used to stop the disorder.

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Police: 3 in custody after assaulting armed man, gunshot fired during struggle in Arundel Mills Mall

HANOVER, Md. —
A gunshot was fired during a struggle Saturday inside Arundel Mills Mall, and three assailants are in custody after a police pursuit into Baltimore County, police said.

Anne Arundel County police spokesman Justin Mulcahy said officers were called around 5 p.m. for a gunshot fired during a fight at the mall.

Mulcahy said a man was leaving the Burlington Coat Factory store when three people approached and assaulted him.

Police said the victim pulled out a gun, a struggle ensued and the weapon discharged. One of the assailants was struck in a wrist.

The assailants fled in a black Nissan Altima that was tracked by the police Real-Time Information Center on Interstate 97 in the Glen Burnie area, Mulcahy said. Officers pursued the vehicle onto the Beltway before it ultimately exited and crashed in Baltimore County and the assailants ran off, police said.

Aided by aerial units, officers tracked down all three assailants, two of whom suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the crash.

Mulcahy said an officer was also injured in a crash during the pursuit and was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

A motive remains unknown and it was not immediately known whether the victim and assailants knew each other.

Police said there was no active threat inside the mall, which remained open.

An investigation continues.

Beretta Holding Sends Letter to Ruger BOD Re: All-Cash, Partial Tender Offer

By Dave Workman

In the latest chapter of an ongoing feud between Beretta Holding S.A. and Sturm, Ruger & Company, the Italian-based firearms manufacturer has sent a letter to Ruger’s Board of Directors “regarding a potential partial tender offer for up to 20.05% of the outstanding shares of the Company it does not already own at a purchase price of $44.80 per share in cash,” according to a notice posted Thursday at The Outdoor Wire, which has been covering the controversy.

Ruger subsequently issued a terse response, noting the Board, “has received a letter from Beretta Holding S.A. (“Beretta”), in which Beretta proposes, subject to certain conditions, to commence a partial tender offer for up to 20.05% of the outstanding shares of the Company, which if successful would effectively increase Beretta’s ownership stake in Ruger to approximately 30%. Such proposed partial tender offer has not actually commenced.

“Shareholders do not need to take any action at this time,” the Ruger statement said. “The Board, in consultation with its financial and legal advisors, will assess Beretta’s letter and respond in due course.”

In its 1,301-word message posted at The Outdoor Wire, Beretta Holding asserted, “From the outset, Beretta Holding has been clear about the desire to make a more meaningful investment in the Company, further enhancing alignment with all shareholders; however, the Ruger Board responded by immediately and defensively standing in the way.”

The controversy leaped into the spotlight earlier this month, with the two companies posting their perspectives. The Outdoor Wire has been diligently posting each side’s public messages, essentially allowing readers to make their own conclusions.

Further in its letter, Beretta Holding states, “The potential tender offer described above has not yet commenced. This communication is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation, an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of common stock.”

Beretta also encourages Ruger stockholders to “read the tender offer statement.”

“Beretta Holding intends to file a preliminary proxy statement and accompanying WHITE universal proxy card with the SEC to be used to solicit votes for the election of Beretta Holding’s slate of highly qualified director nominees at the 2026 annual meeting of stockholders of the Company,” the letter states.

Demoncrap lawmakers seek data on US gun exports linked to cartels, criminal violence

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) – Two Democratic members of Congress are pressing the Commerce Department for detailed data on U.S. exports of semi-automatic weapons, citing concerns that ​legally exported American firearms are fueling criminal violence and arming cartels ‌across the Western Hemisphere.
Reuters reviewed the letter sent on Sunday by Senator Elizabeth Fauxcahontas Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Gregory Meeks of New York to Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler.
Warren and ​Meeks, the top Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee and House Foreign ​Affairs Committee, respectively, invoked their oversight authority under the Export Control ⁠Reform Act of 2018 to demand a sweeping accounting of semi-automatic firearm export ​licenses approved since January 2025.

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