Virginia Gov. Spanberger signs, makes amendments to gun safety laws 14APR26

 THANK GOD we no longer have a commonwealth assembly and governor afraid of and / or bought by the nra!!!

Virginia Gov. Spanberger signs, makes amendments to gun safety laws

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger has signed and amended a series of gun bills, fulfilling her campaign promise to tighten gun safety.

The measures Spanberger signed into law include a bill requiring guns be locked away when left in vehicles, a statewide ban on so-called "ghost guns" and a bill allowing gun makers to be held legally accountable in certain cases of gun violence.

"It's a historic win not just for Virginia. ... When we elect change-makers that share our values around gun safety, then change happens," Kelly Johnson with Moms Demand Action told News4.

State Sen. Dave Marsden sponsored the bill making it a Class 4 misdemeanor with a $250 fine if gun owners don’t lock up their handguns on the road, either in a locked glove box, console or specially designed container affixed to the vehicle.

Marsden said criminals, especially teens, are increasingly getting their weapons from vehicles before committing crimes.

"Our cars have become shopping carts for kids," he said. "To treat this as a criminal offense will send a message out there that you need to be responsible, and if you want a gun in your car, go to the expense of doing it the right way."

Spanberger also put her mark on several high-profile measures, adding amendments late Monday night.

Her office said she changed an assault weapons ban to exclude certain semi-automatic weapons used for hunting. The assault weapons legislation does not apply to firearms or magazines lawfully owned before July 1, 2026.

She also amended the bill requiring guns be stored and locked in homes with minors to allow a gun locking device that makes the weapon inoperable.

In another bill, Spanberger added language to raise the handgun purchase age from 18 to 21, with exceptions for members of the military or people in law enforcement training.

Gun rights organizations are promising immediate court challenges, hoping to block some of the changes.

In their sights in particular: the assault weapons ban.

"We’ll be ready to meet them at the court steps. The lawsuits are drafted. The support from the Department of Justice, their civil rights division, is there and we’ll look forward to our day in court to right these wrongs," John Commerford with the National Rifle Association said.

Commerford said the new restrictions hurt Virginians who are already following the law.

"It's just continuing to put limits on the population in the state that is the most law abiding," he said. "They're continuing to focus of reducing the constitutional rights of Virginians across the Commonwealth."

Lawmakers will decide whether to sign off on Spanberger's amendments when they reconvene next week.

Correction (April 15, 2026): An earlier version of this article misstated the name of John Commerford with the National Rifle Association.

Virginia Governor Ends Tax Breaks for Confederate Groups 14APR26

 

WAY COOL AND WELL DONE VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH ASSEMBLY!!! DooDuh, DooDuh you feeckin confederate traitors!!! These are overdue actions making things right for all Americans. From the New York Times.....

Navy removes Confederate name from Naval Academy building 17FEB23

Virginia Governor Ends Tax Breaks for Confederate Groups

The new law signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger is the culmination of a long, Democrat-led push to distance Virginia from its Confederate past.

By Anna Venarchik

Anna Venarchik has been reporting across the South on the Confederacy’s legacy since 2020.

April 14, 2026

Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia has signed into law a bill to end tax exemptions for a slate of Confederacy-related organizations in the state.

The signing by Ms. Spanberger on Monday is the culmination of a yearslong Democrat-led push to shake off the state’s legacy as the capital of the 11 Southern, slaveholding states that seceded from the country in the 1860s.

The new law’s most significant target is the United Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in 1894 for descendants of Confederates. The organization’s stated purpose is to honor the members’ ancestors through, among other things, working with homeless shelters, food banks and other civic groups. Throughout its history, the group built hundreds of Confederate memorials around the country, which have become flash points for protests over historical memory and racial injustices in the last decade.

In the past, the organization has said that losing the decades-old tax breaks could hinder its ability to maintain its headquarters in Richmond and carry out its operations.

Governor Spanberger, a Democrat, was elected in November by a wide margin and took office in January. She has described her victory as a referendum on the Trump administration, which has been aggressively moving to restore some Confederate symbols that were taken down in recent years.

In the General Assembly, where Democrats control both chambers, the House voted 62 to 35, and the Senate 21 to 17, to pass the legislation. This is the third consecutive year that Delegate Alex Askew has sponsored a version of the bill, which he said was an important step toward making state law align with modern values.

“Governor Spanberger’s signing of this bill is a proud moment and an important step forward for Virginia,” he said in a statement on Monday.

Representatives for the United Daughters of the Confederacy did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement in February, Julie Hardaway, the president of the national organization, said the bill “reeks of discrimination, based on misguided and biased opinions of our great philanthropic organization.”

Of particular concern to the group is its marble-walled headquarters in Richmond. It sits on property that the state deeded the group in 1950, but the terms stipulate that if the organization can no longer maintain the site, it will revert to the state.

The total property is valued at about $4.7 million, which according to the city’s rate would make the annual property tax over $57,000. The organization had about $2.1 million in revenue and about $1.1 million in expenses in 2025, according to a tax filing.

In 2020, the building sustained millions of dollars in damage when demonstrators set it ablaze during violence after George Floyd’s murder.

Two other Democrat-led bills targeting the Confederacy’s legacy also made it to Governor Spanberger’s desk. One, which she sent back to the Assembly with recommendations, would establish a task force at the Virginia Military Institute. The panel would be expected to, among other things, recommend ways the college could distance itself from the “Lost Cause,” a sanitized narrative about the Confederacy that has been propagated as fact throughout much of Southern history. The other bill discontinues specialty license plates that feature Robert E. Lee and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It was signed into law by the governor last week.

Frank Earnest, a spokesman for the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said it was “terrible” that the Lee plate would be discontinued and that it was an issue of free speech.

“I could go down to the D.M.V. right now and point out some fact about every plate there that I didn’t like,” he said. “So if we’re going to cancel every plate because somebody out there doesn’t like it, we might as well just cancel the whole program.”

Virginia’s place at the center of Confederate history has stirred tension and anger for years. Efforts to remove Confederate memorials intensified after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and accelerated in 2020, when Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, signed a bill that gave local governments the authority to alter their Confederate symbols. His Republican successor, Glenn Youngkin, however, twice vetoed versions of the tax bill and said targeting specific groups by revoking exemptions would set “an inappropriate precedent.”

The issue continues to play out in other ways across the state. For example, Shenandoah County is awaiting a judge’s decision over whether Black students’ rights were violated when the school board restored the names of Confederate generals to two schools, after they were dropped in 2020.

And at the federal level, the Trump administration announced that a Confederate memorial that was removed in 2023 would be returned to Arlington National Cemetery, a restoration that will reportedly cost $10 million.

Across the U.S. With The Times

Our reporters are exploring how America defines itself.

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• Go Inside ‘The Brady Bunch’ House: While only its exterior ever appeared in the TV show, stepping into the real-life Brady house now is like going back in time.

• Prepping for the End of the World: Homesteading evokes a frontier America. But these days, it means having the skills to grow your food, survive off the grid, if necessary, and take care of family and community.

• $400 Bibles: The growing interest in premium Bibles includes a wide array of translations assembled with high-quality materials, like genuine leather covers, and in many cases extras like elaborate color illustrations.

• Siblings Raising Children: When undocumented parents are detained by ICE agents, children who are American citizens are often left to raise each other.