Gun sales have been soaring in Virginia for months now. Ever since Democrats introduced legislation banning so-called assault firearms and large capacity magazines, residents have been stocking up. Two months ago, sales in the state were double what they were in May, 2025, and when the NSSF releases its adjusted NICS checks for June later today, I expect that the number will be even higher.
One last trip to the gun store today. The lines were ungodly. The AR section looked like a turkey carcass the day after Thanksgiving.
— Garren Shipley (@GarrenShipley) July 1, 2026
But people were still picking over the remnants. I hope some @VADemocrats got to see the crowds. pic.twitter.com/w9sffQgGM5
This is hardly shocking. When Democrats told Virginians that they wouldn't be able to buy popular arms as of July 1, lots of us headed to our gun stores to purchase one or more of these items while we could. I know someone who purchased four rifles, one of each of his children when they come of age, and I'm sure he wasn't alone.
Gun makers responded to the surge in demand, as you might also expect. But Everytown's Smoking Gun website claims that it's actually the firearms industry "flooding" the state with guns that's spurred the increase in sales.
The report comes as a new assault weapons ban goes into effect in Rhode Island on July 1, 2026. Virginia enacted a similar law scheduled to take effect on the same date.1 The states joined nine others, and Washington, D.C., in prohibiting the sale of such weapons. Virginia’s law also prohibits the sale of high-capacity magazines that hold over 15 rounds of ammunition; Rhode Island enacted similar legislation regarding magazines that hold over 10 rounds in 2022.
The gun industry’s reaction to those gun safety measures has followed a predictable pattern: flood both states with as many assault weapons and high-capacity magazines as possible before further sales are prohibited. For example, Palmetto State Armory, a company that produces and sells a variety of assault weapons, including AR-15s and AK-47s, repeatedly told customers it had doubled its production and would prioritize orders for Rhode Island and Virginia ahead of July 1. As the company’s director of branding said in a recent video, “When freedom is threatened, we don’t slow down, we step it up. While politicians work to limit rights, we’ll keep building, keep shipping, and keep fighting to maximize freedom.”2
Palmetto State Armory also released a video announcing that it had stocked up on long guns and magazines in its brick-and-mortar stores in North and South Carolina, including one “right off” Interstate 95, so if Virginia customers “wanted to drive on down, you can.”
If the customer demand wasn't there, PSA would be losing money by doubling its production with Virginia and Rhode Island residents in mind. And if Democrats hadn't decided to ban the most popular rifle in the country, they wouldn't have stoked demand for these products.
I don't think Smoking Gun writer Greg Lickenbrock is actually dumb enough to believe his hypothesis. I do, though, think that Lickenbrock is hoping his readers are so clueless that they'll accept his take at face value without engaging in the slightest bit of critical thinking.
Amazingly, that isn't even the dumbest part of Lickenbrock's post. This is:
In an Instagram post, another assault weapon manufacturer, Daniel Defense, announced that “Virginia has fallen” and pledged to donate a portion of all AR-10 and AR-15 sales to the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), a gun group that filed one of the lawsuits challenging Virginia’s new law. Daniel Defense also raised funds for the VCDL by selling patches and stickers featuring AR-style rifles and “Sic Semper Tyrannis” — Virginia’s state motto and a phrase connected to the assassinations of Julius Caesar and President Abraham Lincoln. The implication here is that “tyrannical” lawmakers deserve the same fate.
We're not allowed to use our state motto anymore without being accused of wanting Virginia lawmakers to be assassinated?
Virginia adopted the motto in 1776, and to the best of my knowledge no Virginians attempted to assassinate King George III or any member of Parliament. The phrase does hearken back to the assassination of Julius Caesar, but it is more generally meant to suggest the overthrow of tyrants and the end of oppression.
To suggest that the use of that phrase is a call to political violence on the part of gun makers is absurd. For 250 years it has served as a rallying cry for Virginians to stand up for their liberties, and no amount of historical revisionism on the part of Everytown and its writers can change that... anymore than they can change the law of supply and demand.
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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