Defending Your Right to Defend Yourself
Published 08/15/2025
VCDL Board member and gun attorney, Gilbert Ambler, was in court on Thursday making the case that Virginia’s gun ban in rest areas and ABC stores is unconstitutional. Attornies representing Attorney General Jason Miyares’s office defended the State’s position that the bans are constitutional. <eye roll>
Hopefully we will get a decision by the Court in the next few months.
The Roanoke Rifle and Revolver Club will be hosting the annual VCDL Benefit match on Saturday, September 27th!
The match will start at 10am. VCDL will have representatives there and lunch will be provided. All match proceeds will be donated to VCDL. Come out to support VCDL in the fight to protect our 2nd Amendment Rights!
Mark your calendars! Even if you don't plan to shoot, come on out and enjoy a hotdog and support VCDL! Spectators are welcome with eye and ear protection.
You can also sign up or renew your VCDL membership there that day in person! The match fee will be $25 for all shooters, but the match fee will be waived for any shooters who either join or renew their VCDL membership that day.
Doug Cummins is planning to have some rather in depth/entertaining stages, so this match should be a lot of fun and challenging.
More details on how to sign up for the match will be coming later.
Many thanks to Nat Weigle for pulling this together as the last thing he will do before he steps down as VCDL’s SW Virginia Gun Show Coordinator. And a big thank you to Doug Cummins with RRRC, as well as to the RRRC for hosting this event over the years.
See you there!
We need member-volunteers to work at Guns Out TV Range Day 2025, on August 23, 2025 at X-CAL Shooting Sport & Fitness, 44950 Russell Branch Pkwy., Ashburn, VA.
The volunteers need to be physically active interacting and standing during the event. There are no positions available at the VCDL table.
We are hoping for a good showing of VCDL volunteer members at the show. Four Volunteers per shift are needed:
Saturday August 23,
9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Contact Robert Eufemia, Event Coordinator at
gunshows.chantilly@vcdl.orgto sign-up.
Positions will be filled first-come-first-served. All volunteers working at the event must be current VCDL members.
Admission is free. Some automatic firearms and some custom $7,000 and $10,000 guns will be available to shoot for a fee.
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“GUNS OUT TV https://www.gunsouttv.com/range-day
We are bringing the firearms industry and community together with the general public to create one of the best range day experiences ever. This year we are happy to introduce everyone to our newest contribution to the industry and community, the “We The Free” streaming platform that is not only 2A friendly but also represents all of our coveted American values. We are rolling out the RED CARPET!
Get ready to rub elbows with the stars of the network such as WattheKicks, Pew View, Point Shoot Repeat, Tony Sentmenat, Jared Yanis, Iraq Veteran 8888, Guns Out Staff, Kim Klacik, JR Guerra, Joe Farewell.”
If gun owners don’t get out to vote THIS November 4th, we could be in for a very rough ride in 2026, possibly worse than we had in 2020.
Mark your calendars and get the day off now so you can attend Lobby Day on Monday, January 19, 2026. As always that day is a federal holiday, but the General Assembly will be in session.
Lobby Day begins at 8am and runs until 1pm. We will have the rally at the Bell Tower at 11am, which is much better than the 10am we’ve been stuck with the last few years.
A large turnout reminds legislators that VCDL and Virginia’s gun owners are a force to be reckoned with.
A few days ago, I sent a letter to Suffolk Chief of Police, James D. Buie, urging him to lower or eliminate the $35 fee his department charges for a CHP background check. Hopefully I will hear back from him soon.
After seeing the severe beating that several people in Cincinnati were recently subjected to by a mob, a member asked me to discuss how to handle a situation like that if you are carrying.
If adults are getting attacked by a crowd, but you and/or your family members are not, my advice is to be a good witness, assuming that can be done safely, and call the police.
Why should you put your life and freedom on the line to protect adult strangers who didn’t bother to provide for their own protection? Sounds mean, but it really isn’t. CHP holders are not sworn law-enforcement. We don’t have the sworn obligation, nor the legal protections, that police have. We have taken on the cost and responsibility of carrying a firearm for our own and our family’s protection. All peaceful and responsible adults should do the same.
Now, if you, a family member, a friend, or an innocent child are the ones being violently attacked, that is different. You now have no choice but to get involved and try to stop the attack.
If you must shoot a bad guy, odds are the rest of the mob is going to take off running when they hear that gun shot. Yes, you could end up in a gun fight with a bad guy, but that would be somewhat unlikely from what I have seen in the past. You could brandish to let the mob know that if they don’t stop the attack, they are going to get shot. But if they don’t stop, essentially calling your bluff, you will pretty much have to shoot them to stop the attack. Remember: you can only brandish a gun if you could legally shoot someone with it.
It is best not to attend events where violence could rear its ugly head. Staying well away from trouble is the best way to stay safe. The gun is an excellent last resort, but even so, there is no absolute guarantee of success.
The elections this year are critical if we wish to turn Virginia around and start restoring our gun rights. A bad governor will haunt us for 4 years and a bad House will haunt us for 2 years. Spanberger’s support for gun control makes her a Northam clone. Let’s not live through another 2020.
Online voter registration is here:
https://www.elections.virginia.gov/registration/
Situational awareness and having a gun saved this Youtuber from a likely armed robbery. The situation ended how 90% of situations where the good guy has a gun end – with no shots fired and the bad guy running away.
I would note that he doesn’t mention calling the police once the event was over and he was safe. Failing to report the incident to the police promptly could allow the bad guy to have painted the Youtuber as the aggressor! It happens. Don’t let it happen to you.
https://youtu.be/DGDIpUr1pkI?si=rEzQ_YQ969edM2bs
I always shake my head when I’m reminded that our brave military men and women are not allowed to carry a gun on base unless they are MPs or are performing some other security job. How stupid is that? The military could at least allow those who are trained to carry a firearm in combat zones to carry a loaded, holstered handgun while on base.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/08/gun-free-zones-like-fort-stewart-invite-mass-shootings/
I have been carefully watching the debate about whether the Sig P320 handguns can fire uncommanded or if the unexpected discharges were actually negligent discharges or were caused by a faulty holster.
Full disclosure: I like Sig guns and have several P320s and P365s, both of which I carry. That said, I don’t want to carry a gun that has reliability problems, hence my deep dive into this topic.
While there is always a chance that something definitive might show up, I have not seen a case where an uncommanded discharge of a P320 can be recreated that doesn’t involve at least partially pulling the trigger.
Two situations recently have brought the P320 uncommanded discharge accusations to a head:
Item number 1 appears to have been a negligent discharge by another airman, who then tried to claim the P320 just went off while it was in a holster laying on a table:
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvCDmEPPHBE
All I could do was shake my head when I saw the video in item 2 by the Wyoming Gun Project on YouTube. He was shocked, shocked that the gun went off when he pressed the trigger just past the wall and wiggled the slide.
Note to Wyoming Gun Project: When you pull the trigger, you disable the striker block safety so the gun can fire. Once you hit the wall, you are now beginning to drop the sear. If you keep squeezing the trigger, you will get the sear to where it is just barely engaging the striker, almost any movement of the slide at that point can cause the striker to slip off the sear. Again, there is nothing to keep the striker from hitting the cartridge and making the gun fire since you have disabled the striker block safety by pulling the trigger!
I have been amazed at how many people that I respect in the gun world don’t understand exactly why that experiment failed. I don’t think they understand the significance of the sear being in the frame, and the striker being in the slide. That arrangement will always allow for a little play on the striker/sear engagement. But the trigger must be back far enough to where the gun is just about to fire before that slide manipulation is enough to pull the striker off the edge of the sear.
One person put that whole thing to rest where he showed the same, repeatable, uncommanded discharge by partially pulling the trigger and wiggling the slide with a host of striker-fired guns, including Glock, Smith and Wesson, Canik, Beretta, Taurus, Springfield, and more:
https://youtu.be/L17Mq7XxtlE?t=860
Some of the other discharges were caused by holster issues for light-bearing pistols. In those cases, the holster has an exceptionally wide opening on either side of the trigger, allowing foreign objects to slip in, including keys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRkf-r93Q1s
There have been a few successful court cases on the P320 discharging unexpectedly, but they have nothing to do with the striker disengaging from the sear and the striker block not working. Instead, the claim by the attorney is that the P320 has too short of a trigger pull (and the jury doesn’t understand guns):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqO1TG_eMPc
I’ll continue to wait for someone to be able to recreate a P320 going off on its own, in a holster, and WITHOUT pulling the trigger. In the meantime, if I don’t want my P320 to go off, I won’t pull the trigger!
