Does Virginia Have an Assault Weapons Ban?

Virginia enacted SB 749 and HB 217 in 2026 with a definition that combines listed firearm families and feature-based semiautomatic rifle, pistol, and shotgun criteria. The enrolled text focuses on future importation, manufacture, sale, purchase, and transfer rather than ordinary possession of firearms acquired before its cutoff.

Official Hanover County guidance reports that the provisions were scheduled for July 1, 2026 and that two Virginia circuit-court injunctions currently block enforcement while constitutional challenges proceed.

There has been no federal assault weapons ban since the 1994 ban expired in 2004; no feature restrictions apply federally to semi-automatic rifles or pistols. The 2023 ATF pistol-brace rule was vacated nationwide and is not enforced, but federal SBR classification for a brace-equipped firearm still turns on whether the specific weapon is designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder. Cargill v. Garland (2024) made bump stocks federally legal. Feature bans are entirely a matter of state law.

Scope: State laws restricting semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns by configuration features: threaded barrels, pistol grips, folding or telescoping stocks, flash suppressors, forward grips, and similar. Magazine capacity limits are tracked as a separate class.