Both parties want new gun laws. Just different ones.

Twin brothers Jason and Michael Hazelwood and their cousin Justin make the 150-mile trip from their hometown of Ringgold, a small, unincorporated community in Pittsylvania County, to Richmond every year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to show their support of the Second Amendment. But this year, after Democrats took back full control of the General Assembly, the stakes for the gun rights enthusiasts are much higher. 

“We stand against any anti-gun laws that they are trying to do, these Democrats,” Michael Hazelwood said. “I’m here to show these gun grabbers that we aren’t going to stand for it. We are here for the Second Amendment, gun rights and freedom.”

Hazelwood’s cousin Justin added that he doesn’t trust Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has vowed to use his veto power to reject any additional restrictions on gun rights in the commonwealth. “You don’t know what Youngkin is going to do,” Justin Hazelwood said. “A lot of politicians say they are going to do something, and then they don’t. Or they will say they won’t do something and then they do it. To be a politician you have to be a crook.”

The Hazelwoods were among several hundred Second Amendment supporters who on Monday morning gathered around the Capitol’s historic Bell Tower on the legislature’s traditional Lobby Day. Like every year since 2003, they came to protest a slate of new gun-safety measures proposed by Democrats who are emboldened by their recent electoral gains. 

In some ways, this year’s legislative session is a replay of 2020, when Democrats over strong opposition from gun rights advocates passed a flurry of gun control measures — including Virginia’s so-called red flag law, which allows authorities to take guns away from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others. Republicans have since attempted to repeal the law, without success.

But despite their majorities in both chambers of the legislature, Democrats still have to get past a Republican governor with veto power, who in his annual State of the Commonwealth speech last week reminded lawmakers that “Virginia’s gun laws are already among the toughest in the nation.”

Despite the unlikeliness of additional legislation getting signed into law, Democrats sent more than a dozen gun control proposals to Youngkin’s desk that would prohibit the sales of large-capacity magazines in Virginia, raise the age to purchase an assault weapon to 21 and make it more difficult for people who shouldn’t have a gun to get access, among several other measures.

At a counter-rally hosted by gun control advocates in Richmond’s Capitol Square later on Monday, Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, the newly elected House speaker, vowed to pass an assault weapons ban during the 2024 session. 

“We know that we have a problem with gun violence in America. Anytime on the first day of school when my daughter comes to me and says that they had to do an active shooter drill you know we have a problem,” Scott said to an audience of about 150 who braved the chilling wind gusts and snow flurries. 

“We’re frightening our children, they shouldn’t feel unsafe because we are not doing our job. Everybody here needs to step up and make sure we are doing our job and keep our children safe,” Scott said. “We should not live in a developed country like this where mass shootings are a daily part of our lives, it’s unacceptable.”

In the Senate, Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, carries the key proposal seeking to ban future sales of assault-style weapons. If signed into law, Deeds’ SB 2 would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to possess or sell assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices. An identical measure cleared the Senate with bipartisan support last year, but it failed in the then GOP-controlled House. Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, an Army veteran, has filed a similar measure in the House both years. 

Andy Parker, a gun-control advocate from Henry County and the father of slain Roanoke TV reporter Alison Parker who two years ago unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination to challenge Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell County, said that the 2024 General Assembly session is about “putting Youngkin on notice.”

There is going to be a lot of gun safety legislation that is going to be passed by the House and the Senate, Parker said during an interview near the Bell Tower on Monday, “and there are going to be a lot of bad bills that the Republicans are going to be trying to shove through, and those aren’t going to get passed.”

For Democrats, “it’s really about what Youngkin does with his veto,” Parker said. “My guess is there is not going to be a lot done in this session. I’d love to see an assault weapons ban passed, but I don’t think he would sign it. But either way, he could either be the sensible moderate that he claims to be, or he is going to be the MAGA that we probably anticipate that he is going to be,” Parker said, referring to Make America Great Again, the motto of former President Donald Trump’s renewed presidential bid. 

Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said in a text message that the governor will review any legislation that comes to his desk, but that there was little room for additional gun control laws. Instead, Martinez said that Youngkin is “asking the General Assembly members to hold accountable those criminals that commit crimes with guns by lengthening and making more severe the penalties in order to keep criminals off the streets.”

And for most Republicans and gun rights activists, all Democratic measures seeking to restrict access to guns are non-starters — especially the proposed assault weapons ban. 

“These are commonly owned rifles that many people own and use to protect their families, these are self-defense tools,” said Jordan Stein, a spokesman for Gun Owners of America, who attended Monday’s rally. 

Another proposal of concern for gun rights advocates is House Bill 319, also sponsored by Helmer, which would prohibit nationally recognized instructors affiliated with the pro-gun lobby groups National Rifle Association and United States Concealed Carry Association from teaching classes to obtain handgun permits. 

“This bill would make obtaining a handgun permit quite difficult,” Stein said. “Oftentimes anti-gunners talk about safety, but that bill would actually make it harder for you to attend a class that would make you safer with a gun, it’s kind of ironic. We are going to fight this tooth and nail every step of the way, and we hope to kill the bills in the legislature. And if we can’t do that, we are urging Youngkin to veto them.”

But Democrats aren’t the only lawmakers who have filed gun-related bills. Despite their numerical disadvantage in the legislature, Republicans are sponsoring several proposals that would expand access to firearms.

Del. Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham County, has introduced HB 16, which would allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring their firearms onto state property — including Richmond’s Capitol Square and the surrounding area, where guns are currently prohibited. 

And Del. Tim Griffin, R-Bedford County, has filed HB 389, which would allow anyone who is eligible to obtain a concealed-carry permit to carry a handgun openly without such a permit anywhere in the commonwealth. Griffin also sponsored HB 395, which would give any adult over age 21 who applies for a concealed handgun permit the option to also apply for an enhanced concealed handgun permit, which would allow them to carry a firearm anywhere a law enforcement officer can do so, once they have demonstrated their skill in handling a firearm during a live-fire shooting exercise.

In the Senate, Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland County, has filed a measure that would expand a concealed handgun permit to a concealed weapons permit, allowing the permit-holder to also carry a wide range of other weapons. Among the devices covered under SB 82: dirks, bowie knives, stiletto knives, ballistic knives, machetes, razors, sling bows, spring sticks, metal knucks, blackjacks, nunchaku and throwing stars.

“The Second Amendment is very important to me. Without the Second Amendment we lose all our other rights,” McGuire, who is currently seeking his party’s nomination in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, said in an interview last week. 

“Sadly, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. I understand some people are sensitive to the subject, but if somebody broke into your home and they had a gun, you wish you had a gun,” McGuire said. “And we love our law enforcement, but they can’t be everywhere all the time. Think about Chicago, and I mean that respectfully, I’m not trying to be negative, they have the strictest gun laws in the country, but they have the most gun violence. The thing is, criminals do not care about the law.”

With both sides unwilling to compromise, and a Republican governor vowing to use his veto power to kill any gun control measures that Democrats will send to his desk, most of the measures either party has introduced will remain of symbolic nature.