In the wake of several highly-publicized mass shootings, anti-gun politicians have resumed calls for gun control legislation. Amid widespread trepidation, including at our University, emotions run high — but fear seldom translates to sound policy. That fact, however, has not stopped Virginia Democrats. As the clock ran out on the 2026 legislative session, Senate Democrats voted to advance to Gov. Abigail Spanberger a proposal to ban the sale of so-called “assault firearms” under the guise of public safety. This is shortsighted. Not only will the proposal likely fail to make a dent in gun homicides — but it is also hopelessly incoherent and will inflict a cascade of pernicious ramifications that will far outweigh any supposed benefits.
At the outset, an assault firearm is a nebulous term. It is not colloquially understood by firearm manufacturers or gun owners to describe a class of weapons, and is regularly conflated by anti-gun activists with assault rifles — an actual category of firearms. While an assault rifle is a specific class of select-fire rifles that are already illegal in all 50 states, an assault firearm is a political term of opprobrium likely intentionally conjured to obfuscate reality. When states purport to restrict assault firearms, the laws tend to target firearms with cosmetic or ergonomic features like pistol grips and folding stocks, not core mechanical capabilities. Two firearms with identical firing mechanisms and ballistic power can be treated differently because one is equipped with a certain external component. Conclusively, Virginia Democrats’ approach to gun policy is an arbitrary classification that is not grounded in safety — it is grounded in hysteria.
There is a general level of conceptual disarray among gun control advocates concerning assault firearms. Famously, former President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, could not even define what constitutes an assault weapon. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul — another assault weapons ban proponent — proudly proclaimed that her state was working to stop the sale of weapons capable of firing 1,200 rounds per minute, a ludicrous figure more comparable to a military-grade autocannon mounted on an A-10 Warthog than any civilian handgun. This is the unintelligibility that underlies assault firearm bans, and the legislation that Spanberger is poised to sign reflects precisely that unintelligibility. Its definition is patently absurd — it sweeps in ordinary semi-automatic firearms based on arbitrary thresholds. Rather than targeting real threats, it criminalizes trivial features. Meanwhile, serious criminals remain unaffected, easily smuggling weapons across state lines — after all, police do not regularly patrol the North Carolina border to inspect automobiles for contraband.
To understand how manifestly ill-conceived the proposed law is, consider how it would operate in practice. Take a standard AR-15-style rifle with a detachable 15-round magazine. Under Virginia law, this is not an “assault firearm,” but add a folding stock, one more round to the magazine or even a second handgrip to the same rifle, and the gun becomes illegal under this bill. Duct-tape a Sharpie perpendicular to the barrel, and voilà — it becomes an “assault firearm.” What makes this distinction especially problematic is that each of the enumerated features triggering legal reclassification are largely convenience-oriented, rather than functional in any meaningful ballistic sense. A folding stock, for instance, primarily affects storage and portability — it does not increase muzzle velocity, rate of fire or lethality. Likewise, the difference between a 15-round and 16-round magazine is marginal to the point of arbitrariness, yet it serves as a bright-line threshold for legality.
The classification of a rifle equipped with a folding stock or second handgrip as an “assault firearm” is simply ridiculous — but it gets worse. The legislation’s definition of “assault firearm” collapses these relatively superficial modifications into the same category as military-grade features such as literal grenade launchers. The legislation makes no meaningful distinction between a grenade launcher and a second handgrip — they appear next to each other in the same definitional list. The result is a regulatory scheme that appears untethered from the actual lethality of the weapon. The proposed law appears less concerned with materially distinguishing levels of danger and more concerned with capriciously restricting non-lethal external modifications. A rifle equipped with a second handgrip is fundamentally different from a rifle armed with a grenade launcher, but the law treats the two as identical. By treating minor features as defining characteristics of “assault firearms,” the law casts an unnecessarily wide net that ensnares ordinary Virginians.
The effect of this law, therefore, will be to block law-abiding Virginians from acquiring the means to defend themselves, despite the well-documented prevalence of defensive firearm use. AR-15-style rifles are in many cases the ideal weapon for this purpose. In a confrontation against an armed intruder, a rifle can incapacitate a threat more quickly than a handgun, and an AR-15 with a high-capacity magazine allows a civilian to fire follow-up shots in succession without manual cycling, which could be indispensable in neutralizing multiple assailants. Limiting the firearms that citizens may access for self defense only serves to benefit criminals. These are life or death situations, where more government regulation only exacerbates the danger.
Tragically, Spanberger is unlikely to break with her party and will presumably sign the bill within the coming days, dealing a blow to the Second Amendment and undermining not only individual liberty, but the right to personal protection. The good news is that although Virginians cannot trust the General Assembly to stay faithful to the Bill of Rights, they may yet have a recourse. The Supreme Court in recent years has shown itself willing to vigorously safeguard the rights of gun owners. In an opinion last June, Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaled that the Court would intervene and address the AR-15 question within the next year or two. If the Supreme Court remains steadfast in defending the Second Amendment, then this intellectually vacuous, soon-to-be law may not see the light of day.
Joshua Hawkins is a senior associate opinion editor for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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