Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Gun-Control Org Spent $1 Million For Firearm Ban That Could Go Down As Epic Self-Own

Bloomberg in 2020 (Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America / Wikimedia Commons)

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.

The court’s orders blocking the law took effect on July 21, less than three weeks after the effective date of the ban. Despite the uncertainty of whether SB 749 would take effect on July 1 due to the litigation from pro-Second Amendment groups, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and FPC, AR-15s and similar firearms that would be covered by the ban were flying off the shelves, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported in June.

“They’re buying the living daylights out of ARs,” Karen Ballengee, owner of Southern Police Equipment, said. “They’re buying guns as fast as they can get their hands on them.”

Background check totals appear to bear that out. The FBI reported carrying out over 73,000 background checks on the National Instant Check System in Virginia during May, more than twice as many as the total conducted in May 2025.

In an article published May 13, The New York Times noted that both the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle (which bears a resemblance to the M16 and M4 select-fire weapons used by the U.S. military) and semiautomatic rifles with cosmetic features or accessories that make them look like fully-automatic AK-47s are popular firearms owned by millions of civilians. Or, in simple language, lots of people use them for reasons that are perfectly legal.

The shorter phrase is that these guns are in “common use.” Per Heller and Bruen, firearms in common use for lawful purposes fall under the Second Amendment’s protection; in other words, they can’t be banned.

In addition to the ban on so-called “assault weapons,” the bill Spanberger signed also outlawed standard-capacity magazines, setting an arbitrary limit of 15 rounds. That is also on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in Viramontes.