What would she mean for Old Dominion gun rights?
Who is Abigail Spanberger? She’s a CIA case officer turned US representative, a progressive paragon, and – if she wins in November – she’ll be the next governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The election is months away, but if early polling is any indication, she has a better than fair shot at pulling it off.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin won Old Dominion in 2021 – his first attempt at running for any office – with the backing of Donald Trump. And he has returned the favor, endorsing the former president in his run for re-election. His 51%-49% defeat of Democrat Terry McAuliffe was the first time a Republican won the governorship since 2009. Now, three Republicans vie for the state’s top job: Amanda Chase, a former state senator who has been referred to as “Trump in heels”; Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a former Marine and state lawmaker who has not supported Trump; and Dave LaRock, a five-term legislator who hopes to build a Virginian version of DOGE. Thus far, however, only Sears is on the ballot, with the other two still needing more signatures. And that may be bad news for Virginia Republicans. As it stands, Spanberger leads Sears 42.8%-36.0%, according to RealClear Polling. A local survey shows her leading the Lt. Governor by a full ten points.
Abigail Spanberger on the Issues
A quick glance at her On the Issues page shows that Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) is about as far left as a politician can get. She’s all for abortion and even wants to see it publicly funded. She opposed the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment back in 2018 and voted for every welfare payout bill that came her way, including all the rounds of COVID “stimulus” money. She fought Trump’s tax cuts, sponsored a bill to subsidize rural renewable energy, and tried to restrict presidential power and require presidential tax returns to be published.
Spanberger also sponsored a bill to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. She opposes vouchers for private schools and believes federal education standards should be enforced in every state.
She backs union workers and opposes a border wall. She’s against voter ID and wanted to keep the Affordable Care Act and the mandate. On a questionnaire that asked how much control the federal government should have over a person’s healthcare, she answered that “the government should be the sole provider of healthcare insurance.”
And she wouldn’t be the total progressive package if she didn’t push for “commonsense” gun laws. Never fear, she has that covered, too – even going so far as to resurrect the leftist lie that gun violence is the top killer of kids in America. This was trendy circa late 2023 to early 2024, but Liberty Nation News dispelled the illusion in January of last year. Put simply, according to the CDC’s actual data, more kids of every age range die from accidents than assault or suicide – and that’s not specifically assault or suicide by firearm, but inclusive of all methods.
No Guns for Old Dominion
So, how does Rep. Spanberger plan to defang the Second Amendment? At a rally organized by Moms Demand Action in January of this year, she promised that, if the people will just elect her governor in November, she’ll sign commonsense gun control into law. So far this session, Democrats have introduced bills to ban the sale, purchase, or transfer of “assault firearms” and “large capacity” magazines in Virginia; allow the state attorney general, local attorneys, or injured parties to sue for damages and enforcement; and make the possession of any unserialized firearm (in leftist speech, that’s “ghost gun”) a Class 5 felony.
There are also bills to criminalize not locking up firearms, restrict devices that modify semi-automatic firearms to make shooting faster easier, and require a permit from the state police for anyone to buy a firearm. Naturally, that permit would require the applicant be 21 years of age or older, complete a safety course, and meet “strict criteria,” whatever that means. That’s not the exhaustive list – just the highlights. Spanberger hopes to sign them all into law, and if she wins, she might just get the chance. Right now, Virginia’s Republican governor is the only thing stopping Democratic majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly from legislating the right to bear arms right out of Old Dominion.
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