Spanberger's Proposed Changes to 'Assault Firearm' Ban Could Make This Common Practice Illegal

Virginia lawmakers will reconvene on April 22 to debate, approve, or reject Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s proposed amendments to dozens of pieces of legislation, including multiple gun control bills.

Some of the governor’s amendments have not yet been made available for public scrutiny, but her recommended changes to the ban on “assault firearms” and “large capacity” magazines has been released… and it looks like the Spanberger is trying to make the gun ban even broader than what anti-gun legislators came up with.

Woah! Looks like there’s a small language change that actually makes any semi-auto that has a magazine capable of holding more than 15 rounds an “assault firearm.” This is actually a massive expansion of the definition. It appears to override the later definitions in the bill. https://t.co/rBcSkvWkV0 pic.twitter.com/0mBmgfL5VJ

— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) April 14, 2026

Under the language proposed by the governor, the first definition of an “assault firearm” would be “A semi-automatic center-fire rifle or pistol with a magazine capacity in excess of 15 rounds.”

There’s no mention of that being a fixed magazine, so I think Gutowski is right that the language would apply to any semi-automatic firearm equipped with a magazine of more than 15 rounds. The other definitions of an “assault firearm” that encompass semi-automatic center-fire rifles and pistols are all based on banned features like a folding stock or a threaded barrel, but under the first definition a rifle or pistol wouldn’t need to have any of those features to be considered an “assault firearm” so long as there was a magazine with a capacity greater than 15 rounds attached.

Though the bill doesn’t ban the possession of “assault firearms”, other bills restrict where they can be carried and transported, so this could have a significant impact on gun owners who carry firearms equipped with 15+ round magazines, like the 17-round magazine that comes standard with Glock 17 pistols.

Virginia Delegate Wren Williams has been looking at some of the other changes Spanberger has proposed to several gun control bills, and for the most part they’re bad news for gun owners.

https://t.co/mNsufRxSpm

— Wren Williams (@WrenWilliamsVA) April 14, 2026

Williams reports that a bill banning the carrying of “assault firearms” in public, for instance, has been narrowed to encompass only the specific localities already listed in existing Virginia law: Alexandria, Chesapeake, Fairfax, Falls Church, Newport News, Norfolk, Richmond, Virginia Beach, and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Henrico, Loudoun, and Prince William.

But Spanberger’s substitute also removes the concealed handgun permit exemption that existed in prior law. As Wiliams notes, even valid permit holders in those localities cannot carry an “assault firearm” in public under this version. That means it would be legal for me to carry a Glock with a 17-round magazine in Farmville, but if I drove to Richmond with that very same pistol and magazine, I’d be committing a crime because my pistol would magically turn into an “assault firearm” when I entered the city limits.

That provision would cause big problems for gun owners who live in Richmond, Chesapeake, Newport News, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach, as well as the suburbs of those cities, where it’s not always easy to tell when you’ve crossed over into the city limits. Beyond the practical concerns, though, both Spanberger’s proposed changes and the underlying legislation banning “assault firearms” and magazines over 15 rounds violate our Second Amendment rights by criminalizing and prohibiting arms that are commonly owned for lawful purposes.

We’ll be doing a deep dive into all these changes on Wednesday’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Company. The Reload’s Stephen Gutowski will join me to take a closer look at what the anti-gun governor of Virginia is proposing, as well as what Second Amendment groups are saying about her revisions and their impact on our right to keep and bear arms.

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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