RICHMOND — Gov. Glenn Youngkin has vetoed an assault weapons ban and a slate of other gun-control bills passed by the Virginia General Assembly, but he signed a pair of firearm-related measures into law: One bans a device that turns a semiautomatic firearm into a machine gun, and the other allows a parent or guardian to be charged with a felony for allowing a child who has been deemed a threat to have access to a gun.
“I am pleased to sign … public safety bills which are commonsense reforms with significant bipartisan support from the General Assembly,” Youngkin (R) said in a written statement.
Youngkin had not been tested on firearm-related legislation in the first two years of his administration when Republicans controlled the House of Delegates and prevented all gun-control measures from advancing. This year, with Democrats holding majorities in both the House and Senate, lawmakers sent over numerous bills that put him on the spot. Youngkin had cast himself as a Second Amendment patriot in his campaign for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2021. But he also refused to answer a National Rifle Association questionnaire and downplayed guns as he wooed suburban voters who tend to support some gun control.
Youngkin’s limits were clear, though, in the batch of 30 vetoes announced Tuesday, which included an assault weapons ban and a measure to close the “boyfriend loophole” to prevent someone in a domestic relationship who is subject to a restraining order from getting access to a firearm.
The actions bring Youngkin’s total vetoes so far this session to 80 — nearing the record set by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) of 120 vetoes in a four-year term. With more than 1,000 bills sent to his desk when the General Assembly wrapped up March 9, Youngkin is on pace to set a new mark for rejections.
The two bills he signed were not opposed by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a prominent gun rights group, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“He should have signed all the other bills to keep our children and our loved ones free from firearms violence,” said Lori Haas, one of Richmond’s most vocal gun-control advocates since her daughter was injured in the 2007 killing at Virginia Tech.
The two Democrats who sponsored identical House and Senate versions of bills to hold guardians accountable for juvenile gun crimes praised Youngkin for signing the measure, which they call “Lucia’s Law” after Lucia Bremer, a 13-year-old girl in Henrico County who was gunned down by a 14-year-old boy in 2021.
“Virginia families will be safer now because of Lucia’s Law,” Del. Rodney T. Willett (D-Henrico) — who sponsored H.B.36, which passed the House 55-43, with four Republicans joining every Democrat in support — said in a news release. Sen. Schuyler T. VanValkenburg (D-Henrico), sponsor of S.B.44, said in the same release that the bill will “hold irresponsible and neglectful firearm owners accountable.” His bill passed the Senate 27-13, with six Republicans joining every Democrat in support.
Youngkin also signed identical House and Senate bills prohibiting the manufacture, sale or possession of an auto sear, a device used to convert a semiautomatic firearm into an automatic weapon. The measures — carried by Sen. Russet W. Perry (D-Loudoun) and Del. Michael J. Jones (D-Richmond) — passed both chambers by wide bipartisan margins.
In addition, Youngkin offered amendments to six gun-related bills. Those included identical House and Senate bills meant to prohibit any person from possessing firearms, other weapons or explosives in hospitals that provide mental health services. Youngkin’s amendment would only prohibit someone from transferring a weapon to a patient receiving mental health treatment.
Youngkin’s office noted that state law already bans firearms from public hospitals and that private hospitals have the right to ban firearms from their premises. Haas said private hospital systems had asked for the law in its original form because it is hard for them to enforce firearms bans if they are only a matter of hospital policy, not a law that police can enforce.
“Police can’t enforce corporate policy,” she said. “The only thing the police can do is charge the person with trespassing, and police aren’t apt to do that.”
Youngkin also amended a bill to make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to knowingly possess or sell any firearm whose serial number has been removed or altered, except for antique firearms. Youngkin’s office announced that he changed the bill to align it with federal law and federal definitions of serial numbers.
Youngkin also amended identical House and Senate bills related to plastic firearms, which can evade detection in security screenings and are already banned under state law. The new bills would create a separate felony if a plastic firearm is used in the commission of certain other felonies, including rape, robbery and carjacking. His amendment would increase the mandatory minimum sentence from five years to 10.
His final amendment was to a Senate bill meant to reduce the risk of school shootings such as the one that took place in Newport News in January 2023, when a 6-year-old boy shot and wounded his elementary school teacher with a gun he took from his mother’s purse. The measure requires school boards to annually notify parents of their responsibility to store any firearms in their homes safely — proposing the same changes that he’s suggested this month to an identical House bill.
Youngkin attached a “reenactment clause,” requiring that the bill win passage again next year. He also directed state education officials to create a comprehensive list of parental rights and responsibilities, and come up with the best way for distributing it to parents.
His vetoes included House and Senate versions of a bill to ban assault-style firearms, which had been a Democratic priority, and another pair of bills that would have prohibited guns at public colleges and universities.
“Shameful and unthinking action!” Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville), who sponsored his chamber’s version of both bills, posted on X. The campus gun ban — S.B.383 and H.B.454 — had been sought by authorities at the University of Virginia following the shooting deaths of three football players in a school parking garage in 2022.
“While I am committed to ensuring well-secured and safe college campuses in Virginia, this legislation does not adequately consider the numerous variations in Virginia’s diverse geographic, cultural, and societal norms across different regions of the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said in his veto statement.
The assault weapons ban always faced little chance of getting past the Republican governor; Democrats failed to pass a version of it even when they had control of the General Assembly and the Executive Mansion four years ago. This year’s attempt would have grandfathered in existing weapons to sidestep the problem of having to confiscate a popular style of firearm.
But in his veto statement, Youngkin said the Constitution “precludes the Commonwealth from prohibiting a broad category of firearms widely embraced for lawful purposes, such as self-defense.” Adding that he is “profoundly troubled by the occurrences of mass shootings and crimes committed with firearms,” Youngkin said the solution is stricter penalties for crimes and more funding for mental health services.
“I think the governor lives in a one-dimensional public safety fantasyland,” Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said in an interview. “My constituents aren’t calling me up demanding higher minimum sentences and tough on crime policies. … I don’t know how many more mass shootings we have to have before he gets the message.”
The vetoes also included:
- H.B.585, which would have made it illegal to sell guns from a home less than 1½ miles from an elementary or middle school. Youngkin said it appeared to be directed at one individual in Prince William County.
- H.B.797, which would have eliminated certain private training programs for certification to get a concealed handgun permit and required the state to provide a stricter level of training. Youngkin said it would introduce “bureaucratic obstacles that impede an individual’s right to self-defense.”
- S.B. 338, which would have required the General Assembly’s audit arm — the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission, or JLARC — to study the “social, physical, emotional, and economic health effects of gun violence.” Youngkin said this amounted to politicizing the agency and added that it “makes no mention of criminology or requires JLARC to look at the benefits of self-defense that firearm ownership can provide.”
- H.B.362 and S.B.642, identical measures aimed at closing the “boyfriend loophole” by allowing a judge to bar an “intimate partner” from possessing a gun after being convicted of misdemeanor assault and battery. Current law only specifies direct family members for gun bans related to domestic abuse. Youngkin said that the term “intimate partner” is vague and that expanding the law would strain the court system.
- Other vetoed measures would have required someone applying to get or renew a concealed handgun permit to supply fingerprints; limited the number of states whose concealed handgun permits are recognized in Virginia; established a waiting period for firearm purchases; required that guns be stored in a locked container in homes where a child is present; and prohibited the possession of a firearm within 100 feet of a polling place, up from the current limit of 40.
