Virginia’s Attorney General Who Talked About Shooting a Republican Just Declared War on Gun Dealers

Jay Jones once texted that he'd rather see Todd Gilbert shot twice in the head than waste bullets on Hitler.

Now the same Jay Jones runs a new unit deciding which gun sellers count as dangerous.

What Jones built with that new power should make every legal gun dealer in Virginia nervous.

The FAIR Unit Gives Jones Power to Sue Any Gun Dealer He Calls Reckless

Jay Jones announced the creation of the Firearms Accountability and Industry Responsibility Unit inside the attorney general's office on September 17.

The FAIR Unit exists to investigate gun manufacturers and dealers and file civil lawsuits against them.

It draws its power from Virginia's new Firearm Industry Standards of Responsible Conduct law, passed the moment Democrats grabbed both the governorship and the legislature.

The law forces gun makers to maintain "reasonable controls" over how their products are made, sold, distributed, marketed, and used.

Break that standard, as Jones defines it, and his office can now go to court for money damages, force repayment of whatever it claims a dealer cost the public, and get a judge to order the dealer's practices stopped outright.

"Creating safer communities starts with holding dealers and manufacturers accountable when they are reckless," Jones said announcing the unit.

He added that the FAIR Unit lets his office go after anyone "negligently contributing to the illicit flow of firearms."

Reckless is Jones's word.

He gets to decide what it means.

There is no jury for that decision, no independent board, and no appeal before the lawsuit lands.

A dealer who sells exactly what Virginia law already allows can still get a demand letter if Jones decides the sale, the marketing, or the storage looked wrong to him.

Fighting that demand letter in court costs money most small gun shops do not have, and that cost is the point: force a settlement before a jury ever hears the case.

The Same Man Deciding Who Is Reckless Fantasized About Shooting a Colleague

Jones ran for attorney general in 2025 while answering for text messages he sent Delegate Carrie Coyner.

In those texts, Jones said he would rather see former House Speaker Todd Gilbert shot twice in the head than waste bullets on Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot.

Virginia voters heard about it, Republicans across the state called it disqualifying, and Jones apologized anyway.

Fox News's Trace Gallagher called out the apology on air as replete with "whatabouts" instead of contrition.

Voters elected him anyway.

Eleven months later, Virginia handed that same man the pen that defines reckless for every gun dealer in the state.

Nobody in Richmond seems to find that ironic enough to mention.

Virginia Just Joined New York and California in the Post-PLCAA Gun War

Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act specifically to stop lawsuits like the ones Jones is now threatening to file.

The NRA has already told the Supreme Court that New York's nearly identical statute "effectively targets lawful commerce in firearms" and "mirrors historical efforts to suppress arms commerce" – the same legal theory Jones just imported into Virginia.

New York passed its version first, and gun makers fought it in court for years before the Supreme Court declined to take up the challenge in June.

California's attorney general signed onto a multistate brief cheering that outcome on.

Virginia's Democrat-controlled legislature took the same playbook and handed it to a man who has already shown Virginians exactly what he thinks a Republican deserves.

Gun shops and manufacturers in Virginia now operate under a standard written by lawmakers who despise them, enforced by an attorney general whose judgment already made national headlines for the wrong reasons.

That is not an accountability unit.

That is a target list with a legal letterhead, and Virginia gun dealers are the ones who have to pay a lawyer to prove they are not on it.

Sources:

• AWR Hawkins, "Virginia AG Announces Enforcement Unit Targeting Gun Makers, Dealers," Breitbart, September 17, 2026.
• "Jay Jones overcomes mounting scandals to defeat Jason Miyares for Virginia attorney general," Fox News, 2025.
• NRA-ILA, "NRA Files Amicus Brief Urging SCOTUS to Hear Challenge to New York Law Targeting Firearms Industry," NRA-ILA, March 30, 2026.