Bad, bad and Mad Virginia Anti-Gun Playbook

Bad, bad and Mad Virginia Anti-Gun Playbook by Gilber Ambler, ESQ

Hey, I'm firearms attorney Gilbert Ambler, and I'm back today to talk about the Virginia Democrats anti-gun wishlist for 2025, about all of the restrictions that they are proposing and why all of these restrictions are very unlikely to pass, but why we nonetheless need to pay attention to them because they're setting the stage and they're predicting and they're telling us what things we might have to look forwards to. And I say that in a sarcastic manner because we don't want to look forwards to any of these things in 2026. If the 2025 governor election doesn't go our way, if we don't have that safeguard of having a Republican as the governor, and instead Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the Governor, many of these restrictions, which were proposed last year in 2024 and didn't pass and are proposed this year in 2025, will likely again be proposed in 2026 when we need to be worried about whether at that point, the stage might be set for them to pass.

So many of these come directly and mimic directly what we see from anti-guns at the federal level and what we've seen from anti-guns in anti-gun states like Maryland and California and New York, New Jersey. But some of these are a bit more unique. We're going to talk about them today and why they are just so concerning and why they probably are unconstitutional on how they could be attacked. However, before we dive into this, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button, what are you waiting for? Like this video, subscribe, share with your friends. That way you and your friends can keep getting this important Second Amendment related content. Now, I told you that the wishlist of the anti-guns, the bills that they're proposing mimics a lot of the bills that we see in other traditional anti-gun states, and that's true. We're seeing things like assault weapon bans.

Now, notably, at least right now, the assault weapon spans that are being proposed are exempting firearms that you already owned prior to the ban taking place. So it's just banning the new purchase. And I say just banning because obviously in my opinion, still very much an unconstitutional restriction, but at least they're not trying to take guns away from you that you already possess, which is something other states have done. They're also coming after your ability to make your own firearms. They want everything to be serialized, everything to go through an FFL. And of course, the reason they do this is the government wants to know where these firearms are. So ultimately when they do pass bans that come and take away guns that you already own, they can track them down because they know where they are. So we understand why they're doing this. Registration invariably leads at some point to confiscation.

And so that's one of the concerns. And of course, as I said, these are bills that they proposed last year, their bills, they're proposing again in the future. They're also trying to ban firearms being stored in a vehicle without the occupant in the vehicle. So if you have to go into a gun-free zone, let's say you've got to go into the post office where you get to leave your right to defend yourself with a firearm behind thanks to federal law, and you park off post office property, so you are not in violation of federal law, you will no longer simply be able to put your firearm, which is typically on your hip, probably in the GLO box or center console as you go in, if these laws go into effect, you would be responsible for carrying a safe in your vehicle and having to actually put the firearm in the safe.

And even more concerning if some dirty criminal breaks into your vehicle while you're in the post office and steals the firearm, guess what? Criminal charges for you because you are so lucky that you were the victim of a crime. What a great proposal. However, as I said, these are not unique proposals. These are things that we've seen other anti-gun states do. And again, they're doing things like proposing, and this is mimicked directly off federal law. We had Biden had the Gun Violence Task Force Prevention Center, I forget the acronym that they called it, but devoting federal funding to researching gun violence. There's a proposal for the same sort of thing at the Virginia level. And of course, what they're going to do is they're going to come up with statistics that support their narrative. I don't know if you've ever heard this old quotation, I don't know who to attribute it to directly.

I'm sure somebody will comment and let me know, but lies, damn lies and statistics, that's what I would expect from a gun violence prevention center because after all, if we were really concerned with violence, we would just be worried about violence, not worried about gun violence. Notice the focus here is not on the actual violence. It's on the tool that effectuates the violence. And if you're like me, you think that is a silly thing to focus on. But the one I really want to talk about, well, two bills that I really want to talk about that are proposed this year, again, I don't think they're likely to pass reminder, governor Youngin last year vetoed 38 anti-gun bills. I would expect any anti-gun bills that reach his desk will again be vetoed. I'm looking at these bills because I'm looking at the possibility that they could be reintroduced in the future when governor youngin's no longer in office.

And again, that's why these election in 2025 is so critical to Virginia. But the first one I want to talk about is the trigger activator. Bill Virginia already has a trigger activator ban, but this extends the ban to any firearm that any accessory, any tool kit component that mimics the rate of automatic fire. And so that's one thing. I mean, what exactly is mimicking the rate of automatic fire? But it goes beyond simply that it goes beyond just mimicking the rate of automatic fire. It also says that it is going to ban any accessory tool kit component that allows a person to shoot the firearm faster if so equipped. This begs the question, what person are we talking about? Okay, is it your ability? Is it if you install a component on your firearm and then you can shoot faster your firearm faster than the same firearm equipped without the component?

Because if that's true, then that's going to come down to every three and a half pound trigger connector. Every trigger job on any firearm in Virginia is potentially at risk because all of those lightning triggers and all of those competition triggers and all of those stage two and stage three competition triggers, they all increase your ability to shoot the gun faster than the same firearm not equipped with that trigger. And so again, I think this bill is potentially a forecast of something we're going to have to worry about in the future. Also, a very concerning bill because the sweep of it is so broad. But the final bill on really the ugliest bill that I want to talk about is a bill, and I'm going to have to pull up the paper and read from it because it's a fairly lengthy bill. It's introduced by Delegate Helmer.

And what it's trying to do is it's trying to make the firearms industry an industry that is really virtually impossible to take part in because it's going to allow people to go after the firearms industry for nuisances. And I'm going to grab this and we're going to read directly from this. So this is called the Virginia Firearms Industry Standards of Responsible Conduct. Now, what is responsible conduct? The first thing I will tell you is this bill makes it clear that responsible conduct goes beyond simply what the law requires. It would be one thing if this law simply said, you are required to conform with federal law if you're going to be involved in the firearms industry. I understand that you're already required to do that if you're going to be involved in the firearms industry. But this bill, and again, this is House Bill number 1608, this doesn't just require you to comply with federal law.

Now instead, this requires you to have responsible conduct when dealing with firearms. And if that sounds unconstitutionally vague to you, well guess what? It sounds unconstitutionally vague to me as well. Let me read you this first. Some of the definitions here, a firearms accessory, and this is a fairly lengthy definition, but I think the important part is it includes things like devices that impact a shooter's ability to hold and use a firearm. So a fore grip, a sling, a any number of even a case, a carrying case, any of these components. A firearms related product includes firearms, ammunitions frames, receivers, but it also includes firearms, accessories. We just talked about firearms accessories. That's those slings for grips cases, et cetera. Public nuisance. Public nuisance means a condition that injures, endangers or threatens to injure or endanger or contribute to the injury or endangerment of the health, safety, peace, peace, mind you, comfort or convenience of others.

And that would constitute a public nuisance or anything that constitutes a public nuisance under Commonwealth. And this bill would require reasonable controls to mean reasonable procedures, safeguards and business practices that are designed to, and again, we talked about this. One thing they'd have to be designed to do is to comply with federal law. I understand that you already have to comply with federal law if you're in the firearms industry, but it goes beyond that because this would also require you to, for example, establish reasonable controls to prevent the loss of a firearms related product. Now, remember, loss of firearms related product due to theft or otherwise. Firearms related product includes firearms, accessory, firearms, accessory includes things like slings for grips, et cetera. So this bill is going to require anybody who sells even firearms accessories like a hunting slain to have controls in place, reasonable controls, whatever that means to prevent theft.

And if they are stolen, then it allows people to come back and sue the person who had them offered for sale as contributing to nuisance. And remember, nuisance is anything that disturbs peace or comfort. So you have a vertical fore grip on display somewhere. You don't even have to be an FFL to be your local convenience store that decides to put up some rifle slings, and one of those slings gets stolen. Now, someone can come back and sue that store for contributing to a public nuisance. And by the way, don't think that it's enough that there was third party criminal conduct in stealing these items, because this proposed law makes it very clear that to prevail under this section, the party seeking relief is not required to demonstrate that the firearm industry member acted with the intent to engage in public nuisance. So you don't have to be intending to cause this.

And it makes it clear that the firearm industry member's conduct constitutes approximate cause of the public nuisance. If the harm to the public is reasonably foreseeable. Do you think you can get a judge to say that firearms products are reasonably foreseeable to public harm? There are activist judges, politicians, and robes who will absolutely rule that way, unfortunately, and not withstanding any intervening action including criminal actions by third parties. So what is this proposed bill saying? It's making the sellers of any of these items responsible where they can be sued civilly, let alone people that deal in firearms. They're already subject to all of these very strict federal and state restrictions. Now, if you even have components offered on your shelves for sale, you need to be worried that you could be sued under this. And nevermind, of course, the Federal Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act, because frankly, I think the P-L-C-A-A, the protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act is designed to stop exactly this sort of malfeasance and this sort of harassing type law by a state government.

So if something like this were to go into effect where it creates a cause of action and gun stores can be sued for creating public nuisance, I would expect to be promptly bringing PLCA related challenges to the law. Anyway, I know this is a really uplifting video. This is a fun video where we get to think about all of the fun things that we might have to deal with in 2026 in Virginia. That is all to say, folks, get out and vote in this coming election. If you enjoyed this content, please give us a subscribe, give us a, give us a share. Until next time.

Credit: Gilbert Ambler, Esq.