No one wants to be the “told you so” guy, but here we are. We told you so.
Virginia’s Gov. Abigail Spanberger and her gun control lackeys in the Assembly rushed through a half-cooked unconstitutional ban on the sale of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) and other commonly owned firearms and standard capacity magazines. Once again, predictions of a rush to buy the guns Virginians (and the rest of America) want bore out. Background checks for the sale of a firearm in The Old Dominion shattered last year’s figures.
If Gov. Spanberger, and fellow Democrats who authored the law she signed, state Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim and Del. Dan Helmer, thought they were going to choke off MSR sales, they were wrong. They didn’t slow anything down. Instead, they juiced the sales, to the point that retailers in the state and Virginia State Police running the background checks couldn’t keep up with sales.
Truth in Numbers
June’s NSSF-Adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figures are in and the totals are eye-popping. June closed out with a 241 percent increase in background checks, year-over year. There were 123,699 background checks completed in June. That’s 87,482 more than June 2025, when 36,217 background checks for the sale of a firearm were completed. That’s not all. There were 468,778 background checks completed in the first six months in Virginia for a gun sale this year. That’s 224,178 more than were conducted in the state during the same six months in 2025. That’s a 91 percent increase, year-over year.
NSSF predicted this surge in gun sales would happen. January’s background checks were 26 percent higher than the year before. February tallied a 55 percent increase over February 2025. March came in at 70 percent higher than the same month a year prior. April clocked in with a 78 percent increase over April 2025 and May topped 103 percent higher than a year before. Remember, multiple firearms can be purchased on the same background check, as long as they occur at the same time and location.
Gov. Spanberger did what only Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama were able to do before her. They managed to increase firearm sales because she wanted to ban them.
Cash Registers Ringing
The final days leading up the July 1 deadline were busy. Like, fire-sale busy. AmmoLand reported that sales at NSSF-member XCAL in Ashburn, Va., topped 1,000 MSRs over a two-day event the last weekend before the deadline when the ban went into effect.
WVTR reported that Town Gun Shop of Richmond in Richmond, Va., was flooded with first-time gun buyers in recent weeks and one employee said the store pulled in $108,000 on a Tuesday before the deadline.
“In fact, we’ve seen today more first time buyers, I mean, of course, over the past three to four weeks, but even today we’ve had a number of people who have come in for first time buying, they’re like, this is my first time, can you show me how you know about ARs, and what can I get, and what do you have available,” said Mark Tosh, manager of Town Gun Shop of Richmond.
Steve Dowdy, owner of Bob’s Gun Shop in Norfolk, Va., told the Virginian-Pilot that sales were 60 percent higher over the same time last year. He should know. He’s owned the firearm retail business for 17 years and worked there for a total of 36 years.
“It’s pushed a huge volume of sales,” Dowdy said to The Virginian-Pilot prior to the deadline. “It’s people buying on credit because if they don’t get it by June 30, they can’t purchase it.”
Virginia’s Outlook: Clearly Muddled
The future of firearm sales in Virginia is muddled, to say the least. Not one, but two separate Virginia judges partially blocked enforcement of Viriginia’s ban on the sale of MSRs. Washington County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Campbell granted an injunction, which followed Lancaster County Circuit Judge John Martin issuing an injunction a week prior. The injunctions are limited, however, blocking enforcement by Virginia State Police and several named counties. The injunctions do not apply across Virginia and do not prevent enforcement by certain other authorities.
Virginia’s Attorney General (AG) Jay Jones is warning that the law banning sales in effect and “court orders do not bind individuals or local law enforcement agencies that were not named as defendants in the lawsuits,” according to The Virginia Scope.
That has left many firearm retailers in a state of confusion, unsure of whether they can legally transfer MSRs now that the ban went into effect on July 1. NSSF is working diligently to gain clear guidance on how firearm retailers should operate to stay within the confines of the law and not risk legal and punitive action.
On top of all that, late last week the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against Virginia to block enforcement of the state’s unconstitutional ban on the sale of MSRs in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Virginia. The case, U.S. v. Commonwealth of Virginia, names the Commonwealth of Viriginia and the Virginia Department of State Police as defendants.
Looming over all that, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear two petitions challenging state restrictions on the possession of MSRs. Petitions challenging the constitutionality of these state-based restrictions have endured a tortuous legal path to the nation’s highest court.
The challenges, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, will be heard by the Supreme Court in the next session. These petitions were relisted several times before the Supreme Court ultimately decided to grant cert. Viramontes and Grant challenge Cook County, Ill., and Connecticut’s respective bans on MSR possession, the most-commonly sold centerfire rifle in America, of which there are over 32 million in circulation. Heller and Bruen clearly hold that firearms in common use are protected by the Second Amendment and cannot be banned.
Should the Supreme Court ultimately decide that states cannot restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens to legally purchase MSRs, Gov. Spanberger and her gun control allies in the Virginia Assembly might be in the running for the best gun sales team of the year.
– Larry Keane
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
