$1 Million For Firearm Ban That Could Go Down As Epic Self-Own

Despite massive spending in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial race, the gun-control organization backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have left the state with far more modern semiautomatic firearms than there were prior to a short-lived ban.

Pro-Second Amendment organizations filed suit after Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed SB 749, a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” into law May 14, eventually securing court orders blocking the legislation. Following a decision by state courts to pause the litigation on Virginia’s ban pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Viramontes v. Cook County, a case challenging a similar ban on modern semiautomatic weapons, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) Litigation & Intelligence Coordinator Rob Romano summarized the outcome from the series of events in a Thursday post on X.

“Pretty funny how Everytown spent $1 million to get Spanberger elected so she could sign this ban, and now the end result will potentially be less than a month of it being in effect but significantly more of the guns and magazines in the state than if she vetoed it,” Romano said.

Everytown touted its $1 million ad campaign for Spanberger shortly after she defeated then-Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in the 2025 gubernatorial race.