In a little more than two weeks, the 2026 legislative session will kick off in Virginia, and for the first time in four years Democrats will have complete control of state government. The last time Democrats captured the executive and legislative branches was in 2019, and then-Gov. Ralph Northam made a ban on so-called assault weapons one of his top priorities in the 2020 session. That sparked a Second Amendment Sanctuary movement that swept across the state, and while Democrats did impose nearly a half-dozen new gun control measures, a few Senate Democrats stymied Northam's gun ban efforts.
Virginia Democrats learned from their previous mistake and are now being stealthy about their anti-gun agenda. So far, only a handful of gun-related bills have been filed ahead of the January 14 kickoff of the 2026 session, and major bills banning modern sporting rifles and large capacity magazines, creating a permit-to-purchase law, and imposing new storage mandates have yet to be officially introduced.
Still, there are a couple of new bills to discuss since we took a look at pre-filed legislation back in November.
HB 40, authored by Democrat Delegate Marcus Simon deals with "plastic firearms, unfinished frames or receivers, and unserialized firearms." Virginia law already bans "undetectable" plastic firearms and criminalizes the sale or distribution of firearms with removed or altered serial numbers, but aligns with federal law in allowing individuals to build and possess unserialized firearms for their own use (so long as they can legally possess a gun).
HB 40 changes that by creating a new Class 1 misdemeanor punishable as a Class 4 felony for a second or subsequent offense, for "any person who knowingly possesses a firearm or any completed or unfinished frame or receiver that is not imprinted with a valid serial number." An unfinished frame or receiver is broadly defined as anything "designed to or [that] may readily be completed, assembled, or otherwise converted to function as a frame or receiver," with the term "readily" undefined by the bill.
Virginians could theoretically still build their own firearms, but they would have to take it to an FFL who's authorized to serialize a firearm and have them imprint a unique serial number on the frame or receiver. How they could legally transport that firearm to an FFL is unclear, though, since possession of an unserialized firearm is a crime.
The other new bit of gun-related legislation is SB 79, authored by Republican Sen. J.D. "Danny" Diggs. The former sheriff has come with a bill that would clarify that roadside rest areas are not "gun-free zones." Honestly, I was under the impression that was already the case, as are organizations like USSCA, but I guess that's actually up for debate.
Diggs's bill leaves intact the "gun-free zone" status for the Virginia state capitol and surrounding Capitol Square, along with any building owned or leased by the state government and any office where "employees of the Commonwealth or any agency thereof are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties." I don't like those provisions, but with Democrats in control the odds of repealing those "sensitive places" through legislation is essentially "zero." I'm not even optimistic that the minor change Diggs is proposing will make it out of committee, even though it's only logical that folks who are lawfully traveling with a concealed firearm should be able to stop at a rest area to stretch their feet or use the bathroom without being placed in handcuffs and charged with a crime.
Even a bill as innocuous as SB 79 is going to struggle to get to Abigail Spanberger's desk next session, and I would be shocked if the darling of the gun control lobby actually signs any bill benefitting gun owners over the next four years. Spanberger and some Democrat lawmakers are trying hard to portray themselves as moderates who'll focus on issues like affordability and the economy instead of waging culture war attacks on things like the Second Amendment, but I don't think they'll be able to help themselves. I predict the trickle of gun-related bills that we've seen so far will turn into a deluge over the next few weeks, and I hope that Virginia gun owners are ready.
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