I got an email this morning from a friend in Texas expressing his condolences on the Virginia elections and a somewhat tongue-in-cheek hope that states like Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia will offer refugee and relocation programs for gun owners who want to escape the Commonwealth before Democrats unleash an avalanche of new gun laws.
Six years ago, when Democrats last took control of both the legislative and executive branches, moving wasn't an option for me. My wife's lung cancer had just come back with a vengeance, but she was responding to treatment. More importantly, she absolutely loved her doctor and nurses at our local hospital in Farmville, Virginia, and didn't want to leave them for an unknown standard of care.
Sadly, that's not a consideration this time around. Miss E died on New Year's Day, roughly ten months before the right to keep and bear arms was dealt a crippling blow by Virginia voters. When the 2026 legislative session kicks off in Richmond, Democrats will hold the governor's office, lt. governor's office, Attorney General's office, and both chambers of the state legislature... including a supermajority in the House of Delegates, where Democrats picked up more than a dozen seats on Tuesday night.
Still, I've decided that my guns and I are sticking around the Commonwealth, at least for now. Why?
The most important consideration is this: the small farm in central Virginia where I live is home. I've spent more time here than any other place in my adult life. I've raised three of my five kids here, as well as losing one of them. The ashes of my son and my wife are buried in the old cemetery on the property; the latest additions to plots that go back to at least the 1850s. I know every inch of these 40 acres like the back of my hand; the meandering creek that runs along the back of the property, the old growth stand of trees where wild turkeys and deer like to hide, and the rambling old farmhouse that began life as a one-room log cabin around 1776. I was born in Massachusetts and raised in Oklahoma, but this little spot of the Old Dominion is my home, and I hope that one day my remains will join those of the loved ones I've lost underneath the shade of a black walnut tree.
But I'm also not ready to give up. I know what gun control bills are headed my way, and I'm well aware that there's little chance of stopping them from becoming law. The guns and magazines I lawfully own today could make me a felon this time next year. If I were to pack up my life and move to West Virginia, I'd definitely be more free than I expect to be next November, but every gun owner who leaves just makes it that much harder for the gun owners left behind to regain those rights that have been lost. I don't want to run away when there's work to be done.
Besides, my guns love it here. Even during the sultry days of summer and the snowiest days of the winter, my firearms have a blast being taken out to my shooting spot down by the creek. In the new year, I plan on broadening our horizons by challenging myself to something I haven't done much before: boating. I think we'll all enjoy the time on the water. I just hope none of them fall overboard.
In the coming months Virginia gun owners like myself will have the opportunity to testify against multiple infringements on our Second Amendment rights. We'll have the chance to become named plaintiffs in lawsuits taking on the Democrats' anti-civil rights laws imposing bans on commonly-owned arms, creating new victim disarmament zones, and establishing a maze of regulations designed to inhibit those rights. And as I mentioned earlier today, I anticipate a new wave of Second Amendment Sanctuary activity in response to the Democrats' anti-gun agenda, and I want to both be a part of that movement and cover it on the ground for Bearing Arms.
Am I worried about what the future holds? Most definitely. I suspect we're going to go from a state with fairly decent gun laws to East California or South Massachusetts pretty quickly. I've never lived in a state with draconian gun control laws, but I don't think I'll be able to say that for long.
Things may not get better here anytime soon, but I know they won't get better at all if Second Amendment activists pack up and leave Virginia for places like Kentucky or Tennessee. Maybe at some point things will become so untenable I feel like there's no other option but to flee the state, but for the time being my guns and I are staying put... and taking up a new hobby.
