One of the nation’s leading gun-control advocacy groups announced plans on Friday to spend upwards of $1 million in the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial and attorney general races even though a similar spending effort failed to flip control of the state senate in 2015.<\/p>\n
The Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, a New York-based gun-control group founded in large part by Michael Bloomberg, is donating $450,000 to Democrat Ralph Northam in his race against Republican Ed Gillespie. They’re spending another $250,000 on mailers supporting Northam. The gun-control group is putting another $300,000 into Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring’s reelection bid.<\/p>\n
Northam and Herring contrast with their Republican opponents on gun policy. Northam\u00a0supports<\/a>\u00a0an assault weapons ban, magazine size limits, universal background checks, and a return to the one-gun-a-month rule\u2014all distinctions from Gillespie. Herring also supports universal background checks and the one-gun-a-month rule, and\u00a0his campaign website<\/a>\u00a0touts his record as one of standing up to the “gun lobby and a legislature that is beholden to it.” Herring’s opponent, Republican John Adams, has\u00a0promised<\/a>\u00a0to “vigorously defend the Second Amendment.”<\/p>\n We are making this initial investment because Ralph Northam and Mark Herring have been forceful champions for gun violence prevention in Virginia, while their opponents subscribe to a dangerous \u2018guns everywhere\u2019 agenda,” Brynne Craig, a senior strategist for Everytown,\u00a0told the\u00a0Washington Post<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n Northam, Herring, and current Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe were all involved in attempts by the executive branch to circumvent Virginia’s legislative branch and implement new gun-control measures in the wake of the state’s 2015 election. In October 2015, Gov. McAuliffe, with Lt. Gov. Northam’s support,\u00a0issued an executive order<\/a>\u00a0banning guns from all state buildings. In December 2015, Attorney General Herring\u00a0announced his plan<\/a>\u00a0to unilaterally eliminate most of the state’s gun-carry reciprocity deals with other states.<\/p>\n