{"id":116112,"date":"2026-04-09T14:41:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=116112"},"modified":"2026-04-09T14:41:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:41:02","slug":"116112","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=116112","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

There Are No \u2018Moderate\u2019 Democrats When it Comes to Gun Rights.<\/a><\/p>\n

Virginia\u2019s Gov. Abigail Spanberger is determined to make her mark in the Old Dominion. She campaigned for office as a moderate Democrat, but Virginians are learning quickly that they\u2019ve been hoodwinked. The reaction is astounding.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0recent poll<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0conducted by George Mason University and\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0found that Gov. Spanberger earned the highest disapproval rating from Virginians of any governor since 1994. Forty-six percent of Virginians disapprove of Gov. Spanberger\u2019s job performance, just three months into the job. To put that into perspective, Gov. Spanberger won by 15 points in her race against former Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Her performance is also a glaring contrast to former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin\u2019s 53-39 job approval rating at the same point in his administration,\u00a0according to Fox News<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Chief among those headwinds are two issues that the firearm industry is tracking very closely. First, Gov. Spanberger is expected to sign into law\u00a0SB 749<\/a><\/strong>, which would unconstitutionally ban the purchase of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs), or the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles \u2014 the most common rifle in America \u2014 as well as semiautomatic shotguns used for hunting and home defense and many pistols and standard capacity magazines. Gov. Spanberger is also considering a bill,\u00a0HB21<\/a><\/strong>, that would attempt to circumvent the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to allow frivolous lawsuits against firearm industry members for the criminal misuse of firearms by remote third parties.<\/p>\n

Add to that, Gov. Spanberger is backing a referendum effort to gerrymander the Congressional districts in Virginia that would bring a new hyper-partisan Virginia congressional delegation to Congress. If successful, it would change Virginia\u2019s 11 Congressional districts that are currently comprised of six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats and just one Republican.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Playing Politics with Votes<\/h5>\n

While Gov. Spanberger and her redistricting backers claim this referendum, for which voting is underway, is in reaction to other states drawing new district lines in their own states. But that contrasts with what she said in 2019 about gerrymandering for political gain.<\/p>\n

\u201cGerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority,\u201d Gov. Spanberger wrote on X,\u00a0according to Fox News<\/a><\/strong>. That\u2019s flipped. Now, she\u2019s pitching the gerrymandering referendum to Virginians as a \u201ctemporary\u201d effort.<\/p>\n

But that \u201ctemporary\u201d effort would have permanent effects. Democrats want to gain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. If Gov. Spanberger\u2019s gerrymandering plan is successful, it alone would be enough to switch control of Congress, which is why it is being pursued. It would usher in another era of\u00a0politically-driven impeachments<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0of President Donald Trump. It would also do to the United States what Gov. Spanberger is doing to Virginia with gun control. They would ban entire classes of commonly owned firearms and unconstitutionally rob Americans of their right to keep and bear arms.<\/p>\n

Polls conducted in the days before Virginians go to the polls show that gerrymandering in Virginia isn\u2019t as popular as Gov. Spanberger bet on.\u00a0One poll showed<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0just over half of likely voters support the measure. The only poll that counts, though, is the one where ballots are counted, and\u00a0early voting turnout already topped 676,502<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0ballots statewide, topping the early voting totals for the gubernatorial race last year that stood at 658,471. Rural, Republican-leaning counties showed strong early turnout. However, turnout will be the key to deciding whether Gov. Spanberger and the Virginia legislature can push their \u201ctemporary\u201d gerrymandering measure.<\/p>\n

The entire scheme is still subject to legal challenge.\u00a0Two court rulings were appealed<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to Virginia\u2019s Supreme Court, but a decision won\u2019t be published until after the April 21 vote.<\/p>\n

Virginians Buying Guns, Not Gun Control<\/h5>\n

Virginians aren\u2019t happy with the gun control legislation that Gov. Spanberger is expected to sign into law, either. This is another area in which Gov. Spanberger is revealing she\u2019s far from the moderate she once claimed to be.<\/p>\n

Background checks for firearms in Virginia have risen by double digits in year-over-year comparisons. Local firearm retailers are turning training classrooms into temporary armories to handle the surge in sales. That\u2019s happening as a direct response to the threat on Second Amendment rights by antigun lawmakers to violate both the Commonwealth\u2019s Constitution and the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

There were 53,770 background checks conducted for the sale of a firearm in January 2026. That was up by nearly 26 percent over the 42,677 that were completed just a year earlier. February 2026 saw the same increase, but with increased percentages. In February, 65,501 background checks were completed, which was a 55 percent increase over the 42,193 completed just a year before. The pattern continued into March when 79,383 background checks were done, a 70 percent increase over the 46,659 in March 2025.<\/p>\n

Adding that up, there were 198,654 background checks completed in Virginia for the sale of a firearm compared to 131,529 during the same three months last year. That\u2019s a 51 percent increase so far. That trajectory is expected to continue until the expected legislation goes into effect in July.<\/p>\n

Gov. Spanberger might have lied about how she intends to govern, but the numbers don\u2019t. Virginians don\u2019t like what she\u2019s doing to the Commonwealth that gave the nation George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They also don\u2019t like what she\u2019s doing with the right to keep and bear arms the Founding Fathers knew was vital to ensuring Virginians remain free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There Are No \u2018Moderate\u2019 Democrats When it Comes to Gun Rights. Virginia\u2019s Gov. Abigail Spanberger is determined to make her mark in the Old Dominion. She campaigned for office as a moderate Democrat, but Virginians are learning quickly that they\u2019ve been hoodwinked. The reaction is astounding. A\u00a0recent poll\u00a0conducted by George Mason University and\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0found … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-o-the-day","category-politics","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116113,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116112\/revisions\/116113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}