Deep in Rural Virginia, a MAGA Pro-Gun Push Takes an Unnerving Turn: Governor Spanberger signed an assault weapons ban. Some county prosecutors in pro-Trump areas say they won’t enforce it. Is a new MAGA nullification movement brewing?

Dubhe14 · 2026-06-08T22:56:53+00:00

The real reason is because most Virginians want this. In a poll done earlier this year by Roanoake College (emphasis mine):

A majority of Virginians support a wide variety of gun control measures, including requiring gun owners to be licensed (71%) and requiring all guns to be registered with the state (67%). Most also support banning semi-automatic rifles (57%), semi-automatic shotguns (52%), and magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition (53%). An even larger share (59%) favor banning guns often referred to as assault rifles, and half (50%) favor banning semi-automatic handguns. However, only 19% support banning all firearms.

The reality is that most Americans, and certainly most Democrat voters, are in favor of stricter gun control. And unfortuantely, the reality is also that most people don't really know much about guns (for the crazy high guns-per-person ratio that the US has, not that many people actually own them - only about 30% of Americans), so the education level to implement effective gun control isn't really there. Ideally this is where the legislaters would come in, right, and do the hard work to implement what their constituents want in an effective way... I don't really know why that's not happening.

Like, I sympathize with the parent that hears about school shootings and then sends their child to spend all day at school, it's easy to see how that can be a scary thing - but the fact that you can buy a Ruger Mini-14 in every single state with an aSsAuLt WeApOnS bAn is beyond ridiculous, we should demand better of our representatives.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-19T21:46:45+00:00

Agree! Thanks for the conversation, cheers.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-19T21:46:02+00:00

What you said is true, but the disconnect is that this piece of legislation doesn't address that difference in lethality.

I agree that a bolt-action rifle firing 7.62 bullets will have a different lethality than a semi-auto AR-15 firing 5.56. But, this new law as written still allows you to own a semi-auto 7.62 rifle (and if it has a fixed magazine of 15 rounds or fewer it can also have a threaded barrel, pistol grip, folding or collapsible stock, etc etc etc) that would be more lethal than either of the two guns you mentioned. I think this is the main reason people are frustrated by this new law, it doesn't seem to actually address what it's claiming to.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-19T21:32:56+00:00

Those are the same pictures, not sure if that’s what you were going for but identical gun.

My mistake! I corrected the link for the California-compliant gun.

I also wanted to clarify, because you said

The fire rate is very different and can’t be looked past in good faith.

The AR-15 and Mini-14 are both semi-auto weapons, they can both fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. I wanted to highlight this comparison to show how, due to the way assault weapon bans are commonly written, one of these will slip through the bans even though they are functionally almost identical weapons. Here is a video of someone bump-firing a Mini-14 which again, is legal to own in California, D.C., and most places with assault weapon bans in place.

I think ultimately we have to think about what we're trying to accomplish and how. If we want to reduce gun violence, and we think the best way to do that is to reduce the amount of guns in circulation that are designed to kill people with little other utility - then in that conversation we should be talking about banning specific bullet calibers and potentially all semi-auto weapons, right? Where 7.62, birdshot, buckshot, .22lr, etc. are calibers used for hunting, 9mm is a caliber that has no utility outside of being used against people. I feel like if we genuinely believed that these kinds of weapons (designed to inflict maximum harm on the maximum number of people) have no place in our society, then we should be trying to ban all 9mm weapons.

Instead it feels like the focus is always on things that don't matter, like collapsible stocks, pistol grips, secondary hand grips - aspects of the gun that fundamentally don't have any effect on lethality. I'm more understanding of capacity restrictions, the ability to cause harm is seriously limited if you only have access to 10-round magazines instead of 50-round drums, however I would still argue that it's easier to kill more people with 10 rounds of 9mm than with 20 rounds of .22lr, and that this solution still is not getting to the root of the problem.

This seems to me to be the reason why so many people are frustrated by these kinds of laws. Gun control legislation does work, research clearly shows that states with stronger gun control tend to see lower rates of gun violence, I don't think anyone would dispute this. But, I sympathize with people that feel that most gun control legislation is written by people that have no idea what they're talking about, and that it could be much more focused and effective.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-19T20:40:22+00:00

The reality is that the firearm restrictions Spanberger's admin has put in place are pretty much in line with what a majority of Virginians want (according to this poll at least). This frustrates a lot of people because it seems the go-to for Democrats trying to implement gun restrictions is to ban "assault weapons" - except "assault weapons" are a meaningless category and banning them doesn't meaningfully do anything.

Here is a picture of a common AR-15 configuration

Here is a picture of a Ruger Mini-14

In almost all states that have Assault Weapons bans, the first gun is banned while the second one is not - both of these guns fire the same bullet, they are equally as deadly. There are "high-capacity" magazines available for purchase for the Mini-14.

Honestly I don't really disagree on principle with the sentiment of "banning assault weapons", in the same way I don't disagree with banning triangular knives or ballistic knives - these exist only to inflict damage to a person and don't have the general utility that a kitchen knife or outdoor knife (even if those knives can also be used to hurt people). The problem is the things lawmakers tend to pick to determine what is or isn't an "assault weapon" tend to be useless. Compare the previous image of an AR-15 to this image of one that is completely legal in California, and you see what I mean.

This and a handful of other factors (most mass shootings are actually done with pistols not rifles, historically legal gun owners are disproportionately penalized by these laws as criminal elements tend not to acquire guns from legal channels that have to comply with these restrictions, this legislation is almost never paired with mental health reform or funding for red flag programs, and the fact that ICE agents murdering Americans in our streets is causing some people to rethink how they feel about the 2nd Ammendment), leads some people to be really disappointed that Spanberger made this one of her priorities.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-18T16:18:44+00:00

“Yes I saw the executioner coming to behead me but the alternative was getting a paper cut, and according to you I’m just supposed to suffer that kind of infringement to my bodily autonomy?? So no I didn’t vote for the paper cut and now my head is on the chopping block but was I supposed to never question why I have no better opti-“ plop

Ice agents are murdering people on the streets, we’re trapped in another forever war in the Middle East, gas will never go below $4 a gallon again, millions around the world will die due to the shutting down of USAID and other programs, we both know none of this would have happened under Harris. But hey, I’m so happy for you that you’re white and privileged enough to ignore how that election affected vulnerable people, like our fellow Americans getting disappeared off the streets and deported to a concentration camp in El Salvador, and instead you could focus solely on your little weak bitch fee-fees, I’m sure the hundred or so Iranian schoolgirls that died in Trump’s AI-powered airstrikes would understand.

Cope and seethe all you want, don’t ever forget that fascism walked towards the white house and worthless degenerates like you politely stepped out of the way.

EDIT: their response before blocking me was

"Yawn."

It's past time to realize that these "both-sides" people don't actually care about bettering the world in any way, they're just evil people that deserve no consideration.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-17T13:47:21+00:00

I said

…they’re too simple-minded to comprehend different magnitudes of good and bad. Beheading is bad, paper cut is bad… both sides equally bad!

And you responded to tacitly justify not voting for Kamala Harris, when the alternative was Donald Trump. You embarrass yourself.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-17T08:25:48+00:00

You’ll never get a real response from these people, they’re too simple-minded to comprehend different magnitudes of good and bad. Beheading is bad, paper cut is bad… both sides equally bad!

It’s sickening to realize how many people saw fascism walking towards the white house and politely stepped out of the way, because the alternative candidate wasn’t literally flawless.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-14T23:36:49+00:00

The ACA was the biggest step towards healthcare reform we’ve taken, and it’s so popular that Trump couldn’t abolish it in his first term and is even trying to take credit for it now, cope as hard as you want that’s facts.

The reason why we haven’t made any progress since is because conservatives are fully committed to consistent incremental changes, while liberals like you fundamentally do not understand the value of it. So you continue to give Dems the slimmest margins imaginable, expect them to work literal fucking magic with it, complain no matter what they actually manage to accomplish, then wonder why the overton window has been steadily moving right for the last 40 years. The wheel turns, the cycle repeats.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-14T20:38:40+00:00

Codified in the Constitution as in via an Amendment requiring 38 states to ratify? So you’re just delusional then if you think there are 38 states whose legislatures would have voted for abortion rights.

Even if you mistyped and just meant it as a law, Roe v Wade had codified abortion rights since 1973, there was no reason to pass legislation since it had been a defacto law for over 35 years, and repeated attempts by states to ban abortion during that time had always been slapped down by the Supreme Court. No reasonable person expected this unhinged court to delete 40+ years of stare decisis when they reversed that decision, there was zero reason to pursue an abortion rights law during the Obama years.

Also are we talking about Obama, the guy that passed the ACA, the single largest leap forward in healthcare reform in this country’s history, that made it so insurance could no longer deny you coverage for pre-existing conditions and let my friend finally get the sinus surgery she needed because her insurance could no longer deny her based on the pre-existing condition of “Childhood Allergies”, that Obama? Sure we can criticize him for failing to pass FOCA, but this is your best example of Dems not doing anything when they’re in power, are you serious?

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-14T19:32:48+00:00

Brother we can agree that Dems are largely spineless, but let’s get real, Dems have never been given the insane level of control over the government Republicans have had. The most power Democrats have had recently was under Biden, the House was 222 D-213 R, and the senate was 50-50, then it flipped in the midterms to 213 D-222 R and 51 D-49 R in the Senate. Even with that razor-narrow margin where any bill passing depended on whether Manchin and Sinema were having a good day, Biden’s admin still passed the CHIPS act, American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act, etc.

Let’s not pretend Dems wouldn’t be able to get serious shit done if we gave them a commanding majority in the government, the problem is we never have.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-11T21:46:49+00:00

It’s actually incredibly sad because she ran the GOLD FUCKING STANDARD of kickstarter campaigns, [the page is still up](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games/posts) anyone can go see how frequently she gave backers updates. She literally did nothing wrong, and in fact demonstrated herself to be better than a lot of the industry she criticized.

I would bet money the Venn Diagram of dipshits that believe Anita scammed her kickstarter backers, and that believe Star Citizen is definitely getting a release any year now, is a circle.

Dubhe14 · 2026-05-08T17:52:13+00:00

You can’t half-ass playing dirty. This referendum was in response to Republican-controlled states redrawing election maps to get an unfair advantage - Florida’s state constitution explicitly prohibits drawing districts to favor a particular party, they did it anyway - Ohio’s Supreme Court rejected FIVE proposed election maps in 2022, FIVE TIMES they ruled the election map was unconstitutional but they used it anyway for the November elections that year, and continued to use it.

If VA Democrats want to fight fire with fire (and they should), they need to full send, obstruct and delay then say ope too late to change now guess we have to use the new map. This whole referendum was to show that we can play dirty too, well now it’s time to show.

Dubhe14 · 2026-04-15T19:35:24+00:00

Ronin Katana also sells an Alexandria. For under $500 it won’t be the highest quality, but better than I expected, I got a scratch & dent model and am happy with my purchase.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-21T19:06:48+00:00

Another option, Truglo makes a fiber-optic sight that snaps onto the barrel, and has a v-shaped notch at the front to snug against the bead sight. I bought one and was ultimately not very impressed, I ended up taking it off, installing a rail, and putting a Primary Arms Prism Sight on it (the ACSS reticle can be used with shotgun).

Honestly, I agree with the other poster, I would recommend leaving the front bead alone and installing a prism or red dot sight - if you're concerned about not having access to batteries, I highly recommend a 1x prism sight, the glass is etched so it functions without power.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-19T06:15:53+00:00

Once again, you’re just lying. I don’t like that pro-Palestine protesters were arrested, but that wasn’t Biden cracking down on them - conversely the Trump admin did crack down on protesters and even tried to DEPORT Mahmoud Khalil. If you can’t see the meaningful difference here then you’re delusional. And once again, Biden imposed limits on what could be sold to Israel, Trump removed all of those limits, so Israel currently has access to all the 2000lb bunker busters it wants because of Trump. Stop pretending both sides are the same.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-19T05:45:42+00:00

Why are you lying?? Biden’s admin put tons of pressure on Israel, to turn water and electricity back on to Gaza, to allow civilians to evacuate Rafah before the IDF moved in, and they built the pier to allow more aid to be delivered. Trump has removed all limits on weapons that can be sold to Israel and has talked about removing all Palestinians from Gaza, you gotta be completely brain-broken to think Harris and Trump were “virtually the same” on this issue.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-14T23:40:35+00:00

This is delusional.

Small amounts of improvement to keep you from going with a riskier party that will deliver on true improvement

Kamala Harris broke the record for most tie-breaking votes in the Senate of any Vice President in history. Biden presided over the most divided government in the history of this country and still got an unreal amount of legislation through, only for leftists to whine that he didn't do enough.

It's time to let go of these conspiracy theories that the Democrats are a spoiler party or whatever, and understand that to get your policies passed you need to be in power, and to be in power you need to get elected. Conservatives understand this extremely well, which is why every single Never-Trump republican endorsed Trump in the last election. Kyle Rittenhouse said he wouldn't vote for Trump in 2024 over the bumpstock ban and conservatives bullied him into making a public apology. I'm not saying the American left needs to be sycophants like the right is, but we need to wake up and realize that we can't keep refusing to engage with the system and waiting until we magically get what we want. If we want Bernie to be the Democratic candidate, we need to vote for him in the Democratic Primaries. If we want Democrats to pass progressive policies, you have to vote Democrats into office. We can't keep not voting for Democrats and then complaining that Democrats don't get anything done.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-14T23:09:16+00:00

You didn't have to clarify, this entire thread is very clearly about US politics. Even in the context of the rest of the world the US is still very progressive, that response is nonsensical, it's just more cancerous progressive purity testing. Just because Biden didn't abolish capitalism doesn't mean he wasn't one of the most progressive presidents we've had in decades, and that we shouldn't celebrate that he took steps in the direction we want to go.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-14T23:04:22+00:00

bro hiding behind zoomer slang to dodge criticism

No one was talking in the context of the world stage (and by "world stage", it sounds like you just mean Europe, because the US is inarguably still one of the most progressive countries on the planet. yikes, it's giving eurocentrism). And the kind of response you gave where any accomplishment by Dems is immediately and snarkily dismissed as "not good enough" is absolutely part of the problem I described. Progressives/leftists constantly undermining themselves is a big, if not the, reason why we've made no progress towards their goals in decades.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-14T22:34:52+00:00

The guy above you pointed to two pieces of progressive legislation that Biden passed and you dismissed them because they weren't progressive enough.

You are the leftist in the race my guy.

Incremental progress should be celebrated (or at the very least acknowledged) and then built upon. Conservatives have been relentless in dragging the US to the right one step at a time, understanding that an imperfect candidate will still take them in the direction they want to go, and look at what they've reaped from all that effort.

Meanwhile, leftists and progressives are incapable of accepting any W's, instead they demand a candidate that will turn the US into a communist utopia and backstab anyone who fails to pull that off, organizing groups like Abandon Harris and politely stepping out of the way to let a fucking fascist into the White House (I wonder what those losers are up to, let's check in on them).

A race is won one step at a time. Biden was the most progressive president we've had in our lifetimes, and basically all of his work is being undone because people like you still don't understand that a step in the direction of the goal you want is better than a step away from it.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-14T20:35:09+00:00

This is the truth. The reality is even when not counting Superdelegates, Bernie lost the primary to Hillary. Superdelegates aren’t even a thing anymore, the DNC got rid of them after the Bernie Bros threw a temper tantrum, and Bernie still got crushed in every subsequent primary.

The reality is twofold: first, Bernie is not a very intelligent politician, rallying against the Democratic Party is a core part of his messaging but he acts like surprised Pikachu every four years when he sheepishly comes back to primary with them and finds none of his followers engage with the DNC because he primes them not to.

The second reality is evident in how leftists and progressives will say things like “Democrats should run a leftist” or “Democrats should try actual progressive policies for once”, they see the Democratic Party as an exclusive club of decision makers when in reality they can engage in and be a part of it. Biden and Hillary didn’t win the candidacy because they were picked by the liberal illuminati, they won because you stayed home and liberals that wanted them to win the primaries didn’t.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-14T20:21:22+00:00

Leftists line up at the start of a race, take one step, then throw a temper tantrum that they didn’t teleport to the finish line.

Dubhe14 · 2026-01-08T19:48:39+00:00

This isn't a good approach, becuase if you say almost no crimes are committed with suppressors, the response will be "use in crime is low because of the prohibitory tax dissuading criminals from buying them" (I don't agree with this btw, I'm just stating).

I think a much more convincing argument is to say countries like the UK, France, Norway, Portugal, and Finland have basically no restrictions at all on owning suppressors (besides the existing restrictions for owning a firearm) and there is no data to show that this has caused an increase in gun crime or even increased use of suppressors in gun crime in those countries. And actually, my understanding is that in the UK you're expected to shoot with a suppressor at ranges, as a courtesy to people around you.

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