Pro-gun rights

Election day is tomorrow.

We’re asking that you make arrangements to vote, and remind your friends and family to do the same.

This election is incredibly important for gun rights; some of the highest positions of the state government are at stake, and protections for firearms are at serious risk because of anti-2A politicians.

GOA is proud to endorse candidate Winsome Earle-Sears for Governor.

Earle-Sears has demonstrated strongly throughout her tenure as VA’s Lieutenant Governor that the Second Amendment will be respected and protected in this state.

She’s made it clear that as Governor, she will do what is necessary to stop antigun bills such as assault weapon bans and red flag laws in their tracks, as well as push forward legislation that will restore and enforce gun rights in the Commonwealth.

Winsome excelled when it came to Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) candidate surveys, exemplifying her awareness and commitment to a wide variety of gun rights issues.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Make sure that you go out and vote, and support pro-2A candidates ballot box.

Use the state’s voter portal to confirm your registration by visiting https://vote.elections.virginia.gov/VoterInformation. You can check your registration status and find your polling place.

Tomorrow November 4, Election Day, polls will be open from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. across the Commonwealth.

Your voice matters now more than ever; please consider standing up for your rights, defending the Second Amendment, and helping keep Virginia a state that values freedom and self-reliance.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ have a trick up their sleeve: they want Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation’s membership lists, all under the guise of “protecting” their members in a recent lawsuit. Thankfully, FPC and SAF refused to comply.

But this is alarming.

When the government has a list of people who belong to gun rights organizations, they effectively have a list of gun owners, which is the very start of a national registry. And we all know a registry can – and will – lead to confiscation.

It’s only a matter of time before the DOJ tries to exert its influence on GOA and attempts to obtain our membership list (which they’ll NEVER receive).

GOA has spent decades fighting government overreach, from the ATF’s pistol brace ban to the NFA’s unconstitutional restrictions. We’ve never backed down, and we’re not starting now.

But we need your help to fight this registration scheme with everything we’ve got.

It may take years. It may take an anti-gun, Democrat administration taking the reins. But eventually, these lists of gun owners will be abused – in the same way that gun registration in NY City during the 1960s led to gun confiscation in the 1990s.

Your donation ensures our legal team is ready to fight back against the registration scheme once the government comes for GOA’s membership list.

They’re not just coming for our membership lists, they’re coming for YOU.

Every gun owner. Every Second Amendment supporter. Every American who believes “shall not be infringed” means what it says.

We won’t let them win.

Attorney General Miyares is still attacking gun rights wins in Virginia.

Call his office at
(804) 786-2071, or tag him on X @JasonMiyaresVA

We recently informed you of how Attorney General Jason Miyares is challenging our big 2A wins.

Despite informing you and other GOA members to contact his office and tag him on social media, he’s not responding or changing course on any of the antigun actions we’re facing.

To recap, Miyares has done the following over the past month alone:

• Chose to defend Virginia’s unconstitutional One Handgun a Month law by making excuses for the drawn-out, discretionary permit process
• Failed to join twenty-six other Attorneys General filing an amicus brief to overturn Washington State’s magazine capacity restrictions
• Decided to push back on our win against so-called “Universal Background Checks” by arguing the court’s ruling only applies to handguns, the state should continue enforcing UBCs for rifles and shotguns, and that certain plaintiffs should be excluded from relief in Wilson v. Hanley

Virginians deserve better from Attorney General Miyares.

You can call the Office of the Attorney General at (804) 786-2071, or tag Jason Miyares directly on X (formerly Twitter) with @JasonMiyaresVA.

A simple message is most effective:

“Attorney General Miyares, I’m a proud Virginian and a supporter of Gun Owners of America. I’m calling to demand that you fully accept the court’s ruling in Wilson v. Hanley and immediately drop your appeals against the unconstitutional Universal Background Check law, as well as the One Handgun a Month restriction. I am urging you to stand with the people of this state and uphold the Second Amendment, not undermine it.

Tell Jason Miyares to ACCEPT the court’s ruling, to DROP the appeals of our wins against Universal Background Checks and One Handgun a Month.

The right to keep and bear arms is not a government-granted privilege; it’s a God-given liberty protected by the Second Amendment. Every Virginian deserves that freedom, and Gun Owners of America will continue to stand firm against Jason Miyares’ ongoing attempts to uphold restrictions on your rights.

With your support, we can send a powerful message to the Attorney General — urging him and his office to do the right thing and stand for gun rights across Virginia.

Finally, after you make your call, please make sure to watch Jared’s Guns & Gadgets episode from today.

Jared has called the AG’s office, and he reports on what he’s discovered in relation to Miyares’ plans regarding our victory on Universal Background Checks (UBCs)—and it’s not good news!

WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 31, 2025) – Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that a petition for a writ of certiorari has been filed with the Supreme Court of the United States in Schoenthal v. Raoul, an FPC-backed lawsuit asking the Court to overturn the Seventh Circuit’s dangerous decision upholding Illinois’s ban on carrying firearms on public transportation. The appellate court's ruling, the petition explains, shreds the clear command of the Constitution and defies the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment precedents.

On October 29, 2025, the Senate Local Government Committee heard testimony from GOA and other pro-gun organizations to pass SB 822, a bill that would strengthen Pennsylvania’s firearms preemption law.

I personally testified regarding GOA’s case that is pending before the PA Supreme Court that challenges Philadelphia’s ban on homemade firearms, explaining why SB 822 is necessary.

I also made it clear to the committee that these local gun control ordinances are all part of a coordinated strategy to bankrupt law-abiding citizens who are victimized by these illegal ordinances using tax dollars and outside money provided by Michael Bloomberg and Everytown USA.

You see, Everytown USA promised free legal help to any city anywhere that wants to challenge their state’s firearms preemption law. Meanwhile, honest gun owners like you and me get stuck with paying for costly legal challenges to restore our gun rights.

What is preemption? It is our state law that says that only the Pennsylvania General Assembly can enact laws related to the regulation of firearms:

No county, municipality or township may in any manner regulate the lawful ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition components when carried or transported for purposes not prohibited by the laws of this Commonwealth. (18 PA.C.S. § 6120)

Cities like Philadelphia continue to violate the state firearms preemption law without any accountability for their actions. Worse, they have the unlimited resources of Bloomberg front organizations to defend them in court.

The good news is that SB 822 (Langerholc) would end local gun control once and for all in Pennsylvania.

SB 822 provides law-abiding citizens with the ability to recover damages, reasonable attorney fees, and costs if a court finds that a local ordinance violates the state firearms preemption law. It also would award costs to an unsuspecting citizen charged with a crime under one of these illegal ordinances who is subsequently acquitted.

Not only that, but this bill would allow membership organizations, like GOA, to sue on your behalf. SB 822 also delivers long-overdue clarity on the scope of preemption, permanently ending any ability of local governments to pass illegal gun control ordinances without facing consequences

Friend, let’s hold elected officials accountable for breaking the law and stop their financial “war of attrition” against law-abiding gun owners.

So, please contact your state senator (by using the form above) and urge them to pass SB 822 without delay.

Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation Successful in Overturning Virginia’s Universal Background Check Law; Judge Halts Enforcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 30, 2025

LYNCHBURG, VA – In a landmark decision affirming Second Amendment protections, a Virginia circuit court struck down the state’s universal background check law for private firearm sales, granting a permanent injunction that bars the law’s enforcement statewide. The ruling in Wilson, et al. v. Colonel Matthew D. Hanley, highlights fatal constitutional flaws in the statute, rendering it completely unenforceable.

The Court declared Virginia Code § 18.2-308.2:5 unconstitutional, particularly due to its discriminatory impact on law-abiding adults aged 18-20. The Court then granted our request to enjoin the administration and enforcement of the law across the entire Commonwealth of Virginia.

Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America, issued the following statement:

“This decision vindicates the rights of all Virginians to engage in lawful private firearm transfers without unconstitutional barriers. The Act’s enforcement mechanism was fatally flawed from the start—criminalizing everyday citizens while ignoring basic constitutional principles. We’re grateful the court recognized that patchwork fixes can’t save a broken law.”

John Velleco, Executive Vice President of Gun Owners Foundation, issued the following statement:

“We are thrilled the judge struck down Virginia’s universal background check law because it was unconstitutionally blocking young adults from exercising their Second Amendment rights. This ruling upholds the true meaning of the Constitution by ensuring all law-abiding citizens can acquire firearms without arbitrary government barriers.”

GOA spokesmen are available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists. For more information, visit GOA’s Press Center.

-GOA-

PORTLAND, Ore. (October 30, 2025) – Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) today confirmed the filing of its Second Amended Complaint (SAC) in Montgomery v. Rosenblum, the federal challenge to Oregon’s unconstitutional ban on personally manufactured firearms (PMFs), enacted through House Bill 2005 (HB 2005). This filing follows the District Court’s September dismissal of the case in an absurdly activist decision that flipped Supreme Court Second Amendment precedent on its head and allowed the State to evade historical scrutiny.

Attorney General Miyares is attacking gun rights on multiple fronts.

Call his office at
(804) 786-2071, or tag him on X @JasonMiyaresVA

Attorney General Jason Miyares is continuing to fail Virginians when it comes to the Second Amendment.

Last month, Miyares advanced the antigun initiative by choosing to defend Virginia’s unconstitutional One Handgun a Month law, and failing to join twenty-six other Attorneys General filing an amicus brief to overturn Washington State’s magazine capacity restrictions.

Now, Miyares and his office is preparing to fight us on another front…

A circuit court ruled favorably on our behalf, declaring that the state’s so-called Universal Background Check law violated the rights of young adults and was inconsistent with the law. This joint victory for GOA and VCDL in Wilson v. Hanley is now being challenged.

Attorney General Jason Miyares and the Virginia State Police have filed a motion proposing an order that would limit the scope of the court’s decision. Their filing argues that the ruling should limit our pro-gun victory only to handguns, that it should exclude certain plaintiffs from relief, and that the state should continue enforcing Universal Background Checks for rifles and shotguns.

You can read this document and other filings by clicking here.

Our attorneys have called on the court to reject the state’s narrow interpretation and to enter GOA’s proposed final order, which permanently prohibits enforcement of the Universal Background Check law for all firearms anywhere in Virginia.

These actions by Jason Miyares and his office are unacceptable. It’s time to demand respect for the Court’s Ruling in Wilson v. Hanley, and demand respect for the Second Amendment.

You can call the Office of the Attorney General at (804) 786-2071, or tag Jason Miyares directly on X (formerly Twitter) with @JasonMiyaresVA.

Tell Jason Miyares to fully ACCEPT the court’s ruling, to STOP trying to limit the pro-gun victory and to REFUSE to appeal the decision.

The right to keep and bear arms is not a privilege that belongs to the government to manage. The Second Amendment is a promise of liberty that every Virginian deserves, and GOA will continue to stand firm against the Attorney General and his anti-2A actions.

The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in United States v. Hemani, a Second Amendment case that will decide the constitutionality of prohibiting a habitual user of marijuana from possessing firearms under federal law.  Specifically, this case challenges 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which makes it “unlawful” for anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” to receive or possess firearms.  This prohibition applies even if the “unlawful user” uses a controlled substance in accordance with state law, and even if a “user” is not intoxicated at the time they possess a firearm.

But rather than being a cause for celebration that the Supreme Court will issue a rare Second Amendment opinion, Hemani poses a serious risk of undermining constitutional rights.  We have all heard that “bad facts make bad law.”  Apparently to make the worst law possible, the self-proclaimed “most pro-2A Department of Justice” has hand-picked a reported terrorist to be the unsympathetic defendant in this next Second Amendment Supreme Court case.  In fact, the DOJ intentionally included the following unnecessary and biased description of the case in its petition to the Supreme Court:

“Respondent Ali Danial Hemani is a dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan whose actions have drawn the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In 2019, a search of his phone at a border crossing revealed communications suggesting that he was poised to commit fraud at the direction of suspected affiliates of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

In 2020, respondent and his parents traveled to Iran to participate in a celebration of the life of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian general and terrorist who had been killed by an American drone strike the month before. Respondent’s mother was captured on video telling an Iranian news agency that she prayed that her two sons, including respondent, would become martyrs like Soleimani.

Respondent also maintains weekly contact with his brother, who attends an Iranian university that the U.S. government has designated as having ties to terrorism. And respondent has told law-enforcement officials that, if he knew about an imminent terrorist attack by “a Shia brother” that would kill innocent people, he would not report it to the authorities.”

Of course, none of this has anything to do with Hemani’s alleged drug use.  And this is not the first time the DOJ has sought to undermine the Second Amendment’s rigorous textual and historical legal test by appealing a highly unsympathetic case.  Rather, this is exactly how the Biden Administration goaded the Supreme Court into an anti-gun ruling that watered down the Court’s Second Amendment test in United States v. Rahimi.  Only this time, it is a Republican, nominally “pro-gun” administration.

Not only is the Trump DOJ guilty of anti-gun legal strategy, but also it is choosing to defend one of the least defensible gun control laws imaginable.  Many courts already have found 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) to violate the Second Amendment, after applying N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen’s textual and historical analysis.  For example, in one recent case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit explained that “[t]he history and tradition before us support, at most, a ban on carrying firearms while an individual is presently under the influence. … § 922(g)(3) imposes a far greater burden on … Second Amendment rights.”[i]

The Department of Justice had no business petitioning the Supreme Court to hear this case, especially when there are several other marijuana cases pending with far more sympathetic defendants.  The Trump Administration should have declined to disturb this pro-gun ruling, and GOA hopes that the Supreme Court will see through DOJ’s transparent effort to influence its decision-making process.

[i] United States v. Connelly, 117 F.4th 269, 282 (5th Cir. 2024).  NOTE: Even the most ardent supporters of gun control have failed to find any relevant “historical analogues” to prohibit the possession of weapons by individuals based merely on past consumption of alcohol or illegal drugs.  In, fact, opium and laudanum were widely used in the Founding era, marijuana was used in many medicinal products during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and pharmaceuticals with cocaine as an ingredient were available in the United States into the 20th Century.  What is more, the Founding generation routinely mixed guns and alcohol at militia musters and other public gatherings without problem.  Yet the Founders never disarmed any of these people unless they were actively under the influence.

[1] United States v. Connelly, 117 F.4th 269, 282 (5th Cir. 2024).  NOTE: Even the most ardent supporters of gun control have failed to find any relevant “historical analogues” to prohibit the possession of weapons by individuals based merely on past consumption of alcohol or illegal drugs.  In, fact, opium and laudanum were widely used in the Founding era, marijuana was used in many medicinal products during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and pharmaceuticals with cocaine as an ingredient were available in the United States into the 20th Century.  What is more, the Founding generation routinely mixed guns and alcohol at militia musters and other public gatherings without problem.  Yet the Founders never disarmed any of these people unless they were actively under the influence.

GOA notched TWO massive victories against the anti-gun ATF, and instead of respecting your rights, the government is plotting behind the scenes.

Our lawsuit against the DOJ and ATF dates back FIVE YEARS, to the first Trump Administration, to defend law-abiding gun owners from illegal background check tyranny.

And we won — not once, but twice. Thanks to GOA’s relentless action, the ATF expanded the crucial “Brady Alternate” rule, allowing law-abiding gun owners with carry permits to skip background checks when purchasing firearms. This victory now protects gun owners in Michigan and Alabama, in addition to the states already covered.

But now, the ATF is desperately trying to MOOT our case, closing the door on a final, binding judgment. Why? Because without a permanent decision, a future anti-gun ATF could flip the script and RE-ENACT the very same gun control!

The stakes couldn’t be higher, Erich. If GOA’s hard-won court victories are erased, anti-gun bureaucrats will have a free hand to trample our rights all over again.

I’m counting on gun rights activists like you to help us stop them.

Will you rush an urgent contribution of $25, $50, or even $100 to help GOA fight the DOJ’s cynical games and lock in this pro-gun victory?

The fight is NOT over.

Every dollar goes directly to our legal defense, so we can FORCE a lasting, pro-gun precedent, no matter which administration is in power.

The gun grabbers are hoping you’ll sit this one out.

Prove them wrong. Defend freedom with GOA.