Spanberger signs Virginia public safety bills

April 11, 2026

Summary

Spanberger signed Virginia public safety bills on guns, first responders, victim services, and sex-offender restrictions.

Why this matters

The laws change Virginia policy on firearms, emergency response, victim services, and public safety enforcement. Virginians, including gun owners, first responders, schools, and local governments, may be directly affected.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed a package of public safety bills Friday, including measures on firearms, support for first responders, and victim protections.

“Whether you’re a first responder or a survivor seeking justice, these laws reflect a simple commitment: The Commonwealth of Virginia will always have your back,” she said in a statement.

Some of the measures had bipartisan support, and some had previously been vetoed by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.

Among the firearm measures, House Bill 19 by Del. Adele McClure, D-Alexandria, and Senate Bill 160 by Sen. Russet Perry, D-Loudoun, barred intimate partners convicted of domestic violence from obtaining or possessing firearms. HB93 by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, and SB38 by Sen. Barbara Favola, D-Arlington, set age and residence requirements for people who may receive firearms transferred from people under protective orders or convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes.

Spanberger also signed “ghost gun” bills by Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, and Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, banning the manufacture, sale, and possession of untraceable firearms without serial numbers. HB21 by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, and SB27 by Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, allowed firearm manufacturers and dealers to face liability when negligent business practices contribute to gun violence.

Other signed bills included HB1313 by Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Charlottesville, expanding workers’ compensation for law enforcement officers and firefighters with post-traumatic stress disorder, and HB248 by Del. Vivian Watts, D-Fairfax, and SB317 by Perry, allowing professionals from multiple agencies to jointly respond to behavioral health calls.

Spanberger also signed SB100 by Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, protecting volunteer emergency responders from workplace retaliation, and HB1300 by Del. Mitchell Cornett, R-Grayson, and SB86 by Stanley, allowing an immediate survivor of a State Police officer to buy the officer’s service handgun for $1.

She also approved bills strengthening cyberstalking penalties, revoking teaching licenses for convicted sex offenders, restricting sex offenders’ access to children in certain settings, updating driver education to emphasize speeding and reckless driving, expanding extortion and nonconsensual-image offenses, increasing penalties for showing obscene material to young children, funding prosecution and victim services in sexual and domestic violence cases, adding human trafficking information to interstate rest area signs, and requiring localities to have automated external defibrillators at sporting events and facilities.

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“If Vladimir Putin calls, I’ll pick up the phone,” Magyar said at his first news conference since defeating Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Sunday’s election. “If we did talk, I could tell him that it would be nice to end the killing after four years and end the war.”

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Middle East

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“Millions have been driven from their homes across Sudan and beyond its borders, with entire communities emptied and families uprooted time and again. The risk of wider regional instability is high,” Fletcher said.

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The review, commissioned in December by Undersecretary of Defense Anthony Tata, was initially assigned to the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit research organization in the Washington area supported by federal funding. A Pentagon official said the study had been expected to begin around the 10-year anniversary of then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s 2015 decision to lift the ban on women in ground combat roles.

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According to the official, Johns Hopkins will analyze existing personnel and operational data and conduct field tests. The work will now continue over the next 12 months as part of what the Pentagon calls the “Performance, Readiness, and Integrated Mission Effectiveness Assessment.”

The official said the assessment will use established analytical methods “to identify the dominant drivers of combat performance variance in ground combat units and provide evidence-based findings to inform force design, training, physical standards, and readiness decisions.”

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In a December memo first reported by NPR, Tata said the review would examine “the operational effectiveness of ground combat” units and the effects of allowing women into those roles. Army and Marine Corps leaders were asked to provide data, including training performance, command climate, and service members’ deployment readiness.

At the time, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said the department “will not compromise standards to satisfy quotas or an ideological agenda — this is common sense.”