By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Virginia’s two U.S. Senators—both anti-gun Democrats eager to spread their state’s restrictive gun control nationwide—have introduced legislation dubbed the “Virginia Plan to Reduce Gun Violence Act of 2026” (S. 4439) and it is already raising eyebrows.
The legislative package includes several tenets, none of which are friendly to the Second Amendment, according to critics. The bill was announced in a press release extolling the “virtues” of both Capitol Hill gun prohibitionists.
Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are no strangers to restrictive gun control legislation. Last year, they “reintroduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2025, legislation that would revive the 1994 nationwide ban on assault weapons two decades after the original ban expired in 2004,” the news release noted.
Elsewhere, their news release states, “In 2022, Warner and Kaine helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, legislation that contains many provisions of the Virginia Plan, including improving background checks, strengthening safeguards for victims of domestic violence, and incentivizing states to implement their own Extreme Risk Protection Orders to remove firearms from individuals who pose a high risk of harming themselves or others.”
Gun owners in their home state are already reeling from the first few months of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s reign, during which she has already signed several gun control measures.
However, Spanberger suffered a setback Wednesday when the Assembly rejected her amended version of an “assault weapons” ban bill. (See related story)
But this will not affect the bill introduced by Kaine and Warner, which includes the following provisions:
- One-Handgun-a-Month: Limits purchases of handguns to one per month to curtail the stockpiling and trafficking of firearms, promoting domestic and international security.
- Reporting of Lost or Stolen Firearms: Requires gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms to the appropriate state or local law enforcement agency within 48 hours. State and local law enforcement agencies would be directed to report the collected data to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center.
- Preventing Firearm Access to Minors: Promotes responsible gun ownership and safe storage practices by holding individuals liable for leaving a loaded, unsecured gun in a place a minor could access it. This will prevent the most common cause of accidental shooting deaths among children.
- Protection Order Prohibitions: Strengthens safeguards for victims of domestic violence by closing the “boyfriend loophole,” which currently allows abusive non-spousal partners to possess firearms, and expands firearm laws to prohibit persons convicted of stalking or subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing firearms.
- Extreme Risk Protection Orders: Establishes a federal extreme risk protection order process to temporarily remove firearms from individuals who pose a high risk of harming themselves or others and incentivizes states to implement their own extreme risk protection laws and court protocols.
- Lucia’s Law: Establishes criminal liability for a caregiver who gives a child in their care access to a firearm when they are aware that the child is a danger to themselves or others.
- Assault Weapons Sale Prohibition: Prohibits the sale, manufacture, and importation of assault weapons.
- Assault Weapons Age Restriction: Prohibits the possession of assault weapons by someone under the age of 18, with exceptions if the child is under the supervision of a parent, grandparent, or legal guardian, or participating in an educational or training program.
- Prohibition of Ghost Guns: Bans the purchase, sale, importation, or possession of complete or incomplete firearms without a serial number and anyone enabling someone to create such a firearm. Updates the definition of an “Undetectable Firearm” so the definition covers firearms that are not detected by machines commonly used at airports, government buildings, schools, correctional facilities, and other locations for security screening.
- Secure Storage of Firearms in Unattended Vehicles: Requires gun owners to securely store a handgun if it is left in an unattended vehicle. Every nine minutes, a firearm is stolen from an unattended vehicle.
- Domestic Violence Firearms Relinquishment: Creates a grant program incentivizing states to establish a process to confirm that any firearms possessed by someone newly prohibited from possessing a firearms because they were convicted of a misdemeanor of domestic violence or they are subject to a domestic violence restraining order is no longer in that individual’s possession, because it was transferred to someone who can legally possess the firearm, or it was removed by law enforcement.
- Prohibition on Firearms in or near Hospital and Mental Health Services Facilities: Creates a “Mental Healthcare Facility Zone” similar to current gun-free school zones, prohibiting the possession of a firearm within 1000 feet of a hospital or mental health facility that provides mental health services or developmental services.
- Enhances Safety at Public Higher Education Institutions: Prohibits the possession of firearms in public college & university buildings unless the firearm is being used for an approved educational purpose or in support of public safety.
Warner and Kaine said their 53-page bill, if it becomes law, “would build on Virginia’s commonsense framework to reduce gun violence.”
The Kaine/Warner bill may not move during the remainder of this session. That could change quickly if Democrats recapture the Senate in November.
