Virginia Dem Calls America’s Most Popular Rifle ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’

Virginia Democrats are going full Big Brother with their Owellian language these days. They’re referring to their gerrymandered maps that are designed to give them a 10-1 advantage in congressional representations as a matter of “fairness”, and to make matters worse it’s blindingly obvious that most of these districts were handcrafted with specific Democratic candidates in mind.

As it should. Dems DID draw these districts with specific candidates in mind. I live in VA-05, where Dems drew the map so Henrico Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor could be their handpicked candidate. https://t.co/4jVM5IqEDe

— Cam Edwards (@CamEdwards) February 18, 2026

Now House Speaker Don Scott has taken the Orwellian hyperbole to new heights by calling semi-automatic rifles “weapons of mass destruction” during a press conference to tout Democrats’ achievements so far this session. 

“This is about public safety. It’s not about control. It’s about making sure that we protect our communities from weapons of mass destruction being levied in our streets. We’re banning assault weapons. That was a promise that we made. That was a promise that Abigail Spamberger made and we’re going to keep that promise. I think the public expects us to do everything we can so parents don’t have to go and identify the remains of their children in school by DNA. We should not be having those kind of powerful weapons that are used in battlefields across the world on our streets here in America. And that’s what we did and we’ve kept that promise. We’re going to continue to do that to protect our kids.”

No, the gun and magazine ban bill being pushed by Virginia Democrats is absolutely about control, not public safety. We’re talking about guns that are rarely used in crime but are commonly owned for lawful purposes. And if Scott honestly believed that AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles are weapons of mass destruction, then why aren’t Democrats trying to ban their possession instead of limiting their prohibition to manufacture, sales, and transfers, at least for this session? 

Scott and his fellow Democrats know they can always go back and revise the ban to include existing owners of “assault firearms” and “large capacity” magazines in future sessions, and for now it’s enough that they might be able to prevent their sale in the future. But if this was truly the public safety issue they claim it is then there’s no way they would allow hundreds of thousands of weapons of mass destruction to remain in the hands of Virginians. Scott’s rhetoric is so over the top that it accidentally proves this ban is about control, not public safety. 

I have to say that I also find it utterly repugnant that Scott seems to be okay with kids being murdered, so long as it’s not with an AR-15 or any other semiautomatic rifle. Personally, I think lawmakers should be working to ensure that parents don’t have to go and identify the remains of their children in school, period. A deranged killer using a 9mm carbine or a 10 mm handgun to target kids is no better than a madman using a rifle chambered in .223. 

The goal should be to ensure the safety of our schools, and banning the sale of commonly owned firearms doesn’t get us any closer to that goal than banning forks helps a dieter hit their goal weight. We’ve got to deal with the individuals who are responsible for these attacks instead of trying to ban one inanimate object they might use to carry out their murderous plan. 

Instead, Democrats are targeting lawful gun owners by creating a number of new, victimless, non-violent, possessory crimes; not because they’ll make the state a safer place, but in order to place more controls on lawful gun owners. Virgina Democrats are using legislation as a weapon of rights destruction, and their appetite for destruction is insatiable. 

Editor’s Note: The gun control lobby and their media allies continue to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment. 

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