Not gonna bury the lede here: out of a slew of bills that landed on his desk this past legislative session, Virginia’s GOP Governor Youngkin signed just two gun-safety bills — both of which were sponsored by our alums!

State Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg (SD-16) successfully sponsored “Lucia’s Law,” named for 13-year-old Lucia Bremer, who was shot by a boy using a loaded gun he’d found at home; the law allows a parent or guardian to be charged with a felony for allowing a child access to a gun. And State Senator Russet Perry (SD-31) successfully sponsored legislation to ban “auto sears,” small, pocketable devices that turn handguns into automatic weapons.

Bravo to both Senators for seizing the moment. It’s doubtful these bills would have passed, say, five years ago, when then-red Virginia boasted lax gun laws, a top-five national ranking for illegal gun trafficking, and, not coincidentally, the dubious honor of “worst US state legislative partisan gerrymander” in the nation (per USC’s Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy).

The tide turned in 2017, when Dems gained seats in the GOP-gerrymandered House of Delegates (hooray, John Bell, Jennifer Carroll Foy & Shelly Simonds), and crested in 2019, when we flipped the State House and Senate (hooray, John Bell & Hala Ayala), ushering in a Blue trifecta.

Progress!
Over the next two years, VA Dems unleashed a firehose of progressive legislation in all areas. In terms of gun laws, results included universal background checks, Extreme Risk Protection Orders (“Red Flag Laws”), Breonna’s Law (banning no-knock search warrants), and a limit on the number of guns purchased monthly, among others — the state’s first meaningful gun-safety reforms in, basically, forever.

As is the two-steps-forward-one-step-back nature of things, Dems lost the Governorship and the House (by 733 votes!) in 2021, prompting GOP House legislators to propose Really Bad Ideas like “permitless concealed carry,” not to mention voting restrictions and bans on safe and legal abortion. In 2023, Dems, including four SDP candidates, regained the House. The state chambers’ current blue majorities — 51D-49R House and 21D-19R Senate — are now thankfully holding the line against this GOP nonsense. But talk about razor-thin margins! Don’t let anyone ever tell you, “Your vote doesn’t matter.”

All of which is to say, Virginia is making progress toward becoming a state with sensible, comprehensive gun-safety laws… but, like the country as a whole, it’s nowhere near done. You might think, for example, that allowing any children 18 or under access to loaded guns is a bad idea, but Lucia’s Law applies only to parents of children who have committed a “violent juvenile felony,” or who are deemed to pose “a threat of violence or physical harm to self or others.” The language is deliberate; broader restrictions would likely have been vetoed by the Governor.

Vetoes.
Sen. Perry proposed legislation to impose enforceable “standards of responsible conduct” and “civil liability” on gun manufacturers, including such mind-bogglingly common-sense rules as no gun sales to gun-traffickers, or straw men, or people deemed a threat to themselves, or… but the Governor vetoed the bill.

Particularly tragically for women, the Governor vetoed Sen. Perry’s proposed legislation closing the “boyfriend loophole.” Current VA law allows convicted domestic abusers to keep firearms so long as there’s no marriage involved — how old-fashioned! — meaning that domestic abusers who are not married to their victims get to keep their guns. Sen. Perry’s proposed bill would have added a person’s “intimate partner” to the existing definition of “family or household member.”

The Governor nixed the legislation, never mind that abusers with guns are five times more likely to kill their victims; that nearly one million women alive today have reported being shot or shot at by intimate partners; and that 4.5+ million women have reported being threatened with a gun by an intimate partner, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

Youngkin, who under state law cannot serve consecutive terms, will be replaced in 2025. In the meantime, let’s be glad we worked so hard to get our candidates elected to state office, where they’re using their legislative power for the greatest good: saving lives.

– Juliet Eastland

Sister District Project MA&RI gives the lowdown on why state-level races are so vital to the nation’s health. SDP helps top-notch Democratic candidates win strategically important state elections across the country, and works to expand civic engagement. Originally published here.