Ahead of the state of Virginia’s impending ban on common semi-automatic firearms, gun sales are *booming* in the state, with more than twice the number of background checks in May of 2026 when compared to the previous year.
Why the rush?
Why are gun sales soaring sky-high? It’s because, as always, trouble—especially government trouble—is the all-time top reason to buy a firearm. And in Virginia, gun owners see trouble with the government just around the corner, as the state has passed several restrictions against gun stores and potential gun buyers in the past few months.
As we told you back in March:
“At the start of 2026, Virginia’s politicians started working on pushing through all kinds of gun control, including a potential super-tax on suppressors (that one was canceled—see here) and other laws that introduced more regulations for gun stores, and banning the sale of so-called assault weapons. The assault weapon ban looked like it was dead for a while, but apparently, SB749 has been pushed through now, after some tinkering and fine-tuning.
The exact wording from the state government’s website says this new law ‘Creates a Class 1 misdemeanor for any person who imports, sells, manufactures, purchases, or transfers an assault firearm, as that term is defined in the bill with some exceptions, and prohibits a person who has been convicted of such violation from purchasing, possessing, or transporting a firearm for a period of three years from the date of conviction. The bill provides that an assault firearm does not include any firearm that is an antique firearm, has been rendered permanently inoperable, or is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action. The bill also prohibits the sale of a large capacity ammunition feeding device, as that term is defined in the bill. The bill provides that any person who willfully and intentionally (i) sells an assault firearm to another person or (ii) purchases an assault firearm from another person is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor and that any person who imports, sells, barters, transfers, or purchases a large capacity ammunition feeding device is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.’ “
The law doesn’t apply to firearms that are made before July 1 of this year, but if you want an AR with a standard-capacity magazine that’s made on or after July 2, 2026, then you can’t buy such a rifle in Virginia as of next month. So, you can understand why gun sales might be on a big surge.
The numbers don’t lie
At the start of June 2026, Virginia’s state police said the state saw 72,956 background checks for firearms sales in the previous month. That’s a massive increase over May 2025, which saw 35,571 background checks.
Of course, doubling the number of checks doesn’t mean the sales doubled, as there is not a perfect one-to-one ratio of checks to sales. Some background checks are for sales of multiple guns, and some don’t go through. However, it is perhaps the most clear raw data available that shows what is going on in Virginia. While we can expect legal battles back and forth over this issue, the reality is that for now, gun owners have to live under the new laws until they’re overturned, and that means it’s a busy time for gun stores, as buyers stock up on things that will soon be illegal to sell.
In fact, Virginia may even surpass the sales numbers of 2025, when they had 499,198 background checks. As of the end of May, they had 340,611 background checks, and while it would be tough to top 2025’s numbers in the next few weeks, it’s not impossible at the rate things are going.
