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Democrats who control the General Assembly are passing a cascade of gun-control bills unlike anything Virginia has seen since three years ago, when the party was last in charge. This time, though, the measures face an uncertain future at the desk of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who has said that he thinks Virginia gun laws are tough enough without specifying whether he will sign or veto the legislation. (Schneider and Vozzella, 2/8)

The Biden administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court ruling that would prevent it from regulating privately made firearms called "ghost guns" that are difficult for law enforcement to trace. The U.S. Department of Justice in its petition argued the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in November wrongly declared that a rule adopted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2022 to combat the rapid proliferation of ghost guns was "unlawful." (Raymond, 2/7)

Michigan's new safe storage gun law, signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in April 2023, will go into effect on Feb. 13. According to the safe storage bill, all Michigan gun owners with children in the home must securely lock away their firearms – with a cable lock or in a gun safe. Under the new legislation, gun owners must also safely store their guns in instances where children are visiting their home. (Golston and Rahal, 2/7)

As attorneys for the state of California prepared recently to defend in federal court a state law requiring background checks for ammunition purchases, they found themselves in an awkward position. Under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2022, gun control measures are legitimate only if they are deeply rooted in American “history and tradition” or are sufficiently similar to some other centuries-old law. The state lawyers had conducted a deep dive through hundreds of years of American jurisprudence and identified dozens of historical laws that they felt bolstered the modern law’s legitimacy by showing that the government has long limited access to firearms and ammunition. But there was a problem: Many of the historical laws they found were virulently racist, restricting access to weaponry for enslaved people, Indigenous Americans and other racial minorities. (Rector, 2/7)

Nick Suplina, the senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, an anti-gun-violence nonprofit, said the Crumbley verdict will “absolutely” help to prevent future shootings by sending a clear message to gun owners that the decisions they make in their homes could have profound effects across their communities. “The implications are bigger than the context of just this case, but the takeaway is streamlined: Lock up your guns, and you can avoid a whole host of issues that lead guns to being the leading killer of kids and teens in the country,” Suplina said. (Bellware, 2/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: To End School Shootings, Activists Consider A New Culprit: Parents

For the first time, a jury has convicted a parent on charges related to their child’s mass-shooting crime: A Michigan mother of a school shooter was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. What remains unclear is whether this case succeeded because of compelling evidence of negligence by the shooter’s mother or if this could become a new avenue for gun control advocates to pursue. (2/8)

Black women in the U.S. are, on average, six times more likely to be murdered than white women, researchers wrote Thursday in The Lancet. The study — which covered more than two decades — is the first to break out homicide trends among women between ages 25 and 44, when they are statistically more likely to be murdered. It's further evidence of how the lives of Black women are disproportionately threatened by systemic public health threats, including gun violence. (Reed, 2/8)