Gov. Glenn Youngkin Vetoes 30, Signs 2 Gun Control Bills into Law

Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin has just issued more than two dozen vetoes of gun control bills.

On March 26, Youngkin announced he was taking final action on 67 pieces of legislation, which included signing 31 bills into law, offering amendments to six, and vetoing 30 gun control bills.

Youngkin was flooded with a bevvy of bills chipping away at gun rights by a state legislature that has both chambers controlled by Democrats.

“I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of Virginia, and that absolutely includes protecting the right of law-abiding Virginians to keep and bear arms,” Youngkin said in a statement. “I am pleased to sign four public safety bills which are commonsense reforms with significant bipartisan support from the General Assembly, and offer recommendations to several bills which, if adopted, will make it harder for criminals to use guns in the commission of a violent act.”

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Youngkin did, however, sign two gun control bills:

• HB36/SB44 - which subjects a parent or guardian to felony charges if they allow access to a firearm for a child who has been deemed a threat.


• HB22/SB210 - which bans the manufacture, sale, possession, or transfer of trigger activators that convert a semi-automatic gun into one capable of firing more than one shot with a single trigger pull.

“I want to thank Governor Younking for signing ‘Lucia’s Law’ to hold irresponsible and neglectful firearm owners accountable when they allow a potentially dangerous minor to have access to a weapon,” state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg said in a joint statement referencing HB36.

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The bill was nicknamed “Lucia’s Law” after a 13-year-old girl named Lucia Bremer who was killed during a walk home by a 14-year-old boy who had access to his guardian’s firearm.

“Virginia families will be safer now because of Lucia’s Law,” Delegate Rodney Willett said in the statement. “I continue to be awed by the Bremer family’s courage and perseverance in speaking out in support of the bills. By sharing their story, they helped legislators and the Governor to understand how necessary this law is to prevent similar, preventable gun deaths from devastating other families.”

Among the six bills Youngkin amended were:

• HB861/SB515 - which barred weapons from being carried into a hospital providing mental health services.


• SB363 - prohibited selling or possessing a firearm without a serial number


• HB173/SB100 - establishes a knowledge standard for manufacturing, importing, selling, transferring or possessing any plastic firearm and introduces mandatory minimum sentences for the subsequent use of a firearm in the commission of a felony


• SB225 - directs the Department of Education to convene a workgroup to create a comprehensive list of the parental rights and responsibilities and develop an efficient method for distributing such list to parents