We're now less than a month away from Virginia's ban on so-called assault firearms and large capacity magazines taking effect, and gun sales are still soaring ahead of the ban.
In fact, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation's adjusted NICS numbers, the 74,959 background checks conducted on gun transfers in Virginia in May are a 103% increase over the number of background checks performed in May, 2025.
April 2026 saw a 79% increase in gun transfers compared to the year before as well. In fact, sales have been up in Virginia since at least February of this year, as residents seek to purchase one or more of the popular rifles, pistols, and shotguns that will be pulled from store shelves on July 1 unless enforcement of the law is halted by a judge.
Last month Virginia had the fourth highest gun sales of all 50 states, behind Texas, Florida, and California. The Old Dominion was second in the nation in terms of long gun sales, however, slipping in behind the Lone Star State.
NSSF's Mark Olive says it's no coincidence that firearm sales are "skyrocketing in the Old Dominion at the same time that Governor Abigail Spanberger put a deadline for Virginians to legally purchase a Modern Sporting Rifle."
That is cause and effect. The exponential increase of background checks in Virginia has been rising each month this year as the unconstitutional gun ban became clearer and is now a political reality. Americans – and Virginians in particular – are voting with their wallets. We expect that background checks will continue to increase through June and will be replicated in states that are now targeting some of the most popular pistols with unconstitutional bans as well.”
The surge in Virginia gun sales helped the national numbers too. The 1,105,758 reported NICS checks on gun transfers is an increase of 3.2%compared to last May's reported total of 1,071,685 checks. Sales of NFA items remain high as well, with 146,551 NFA checks performed across the country. That's about double the number reported in May, 2025.
Virginia was second in the U.S. in NFA checks as well, which suggests that there are going to be a large number of suppressed ARs in the Commonwealth this Independence Day; far more than what would otherwise have been the case had Democrats resisted the urge to turn the state in to California over the course of one legislative session.
There are multiple legal challenges to the impending gun and magazine ban in Virginia, in both state and federal court. The odds of a federal judge granting an injunction are pretty slim, in my opinion, given that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has already determined that "assault weapon" bans don't violate the Second Amendment because AR-15s and other semi-automatic long guns fall beyond the scope of the Constitution's protections.
The Fourth Circuit's decision doesn't hold sway over challenges to the ban under Article 1, Section 13 of the Virginia constitution, though, and I'm cautiously optimistic that one or more of the circuit court judges assigned to these lawsuits will grant gun owners and gun sellers relief before July 1. Right now Attorney General Jay Jones is trying to get the multiple lawsuits consolidated into one case, but plaintiffs Gun Owners of America and Virginia Citizens Defense League have argued that the four separate challenges all involve different questions of law and should remain separate and distinct lawsuits going forward.
The legal fights will continue long past July 1. Whether sales of so-called assault firearms and magazines that can hold more than 15 rounds will continue as well is still very much up in the air, but it's clear that Virginians aren't taking any chances and are buying what they can while they can.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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