Weapons law violations at Virginia's colleges and universities have climbed since 2020, driven by cases at Old Dominion University and Virginia Commonwealth University, according to Virginia State Police data.
Violations bottomed out in 2020 as campuses emptied during the COVID-19 pandemic, then rebounded sharply. By the end of 2025, reported weapons violations on Virginia campuses had reached 55, a nearly 40% increase in just five years.
The state police data captures crime data from 26 colleges and universities. Only 15 reported crimes to the state police last year. Both ODU in Norfolk and VCU in Richmond are surrounded by city neighborhoods and have some of the highest enrollments in the Commonwealth.
That rise has taken on new urgency following the deadly shooting of Lt. Col. Brandon Shah at Old Dominion University on March 12. Shah, the head of ODU’s Reserve Officers Training Corps, was shot by a gunman who had illegally purchased a .22-caliber handgun shortly before the attack.
The shooting was the latest in Virginia to reignite the debate over campus safety and firearm accessibility at academic institutions.
ODU accounted for roughly half of all aggravated assault cases investigated by college and university law enforcement agencies statewide in 2025, according to state police data.
Following the recent shooting, ODU has asked students to divulge their criminal history.
Many of the violent crimes and weapons law violations may not have originated from students of the universities and colleges, according to Lindsay Burton, director of the Division of Public Safety Training and the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety.
“Under the federal Clery Act, institutions are required to report a broad range of incidents, including those occurring on campus, adjacent public property, and certain non-campus locations,” she told VCIJ. “This broader reporting scope, combined with campuses returning to full operations following 2020, can contribute to increases in reported incidents even when campuses remain comparatively low-crime environments overall.”
Burton said her division provides training and technical assistance to campus law enforcement, as well as security personnel on prevention, threat assessment, and coordinated response.
John McKenna, executive director of Keep Gun Off Campus, a non-profit advocating for better and more creative ways to secure campuses, agrees.
“On occasion, it is a visitor coming into an official college or university space with a gun,” he said. “Then it gets put into a category of gun violence on campus when they're more like an activity off campus that got introduced into the school.”
McKenna said despite these recent upticks in crime numbers, campus environments are typically far safer than their surrounding communities.
Campus police jurisdiction extends beyond the physical boundaries of a college or university campus. The data includes crimes investigated by campus police in off-campus locations such as university-owned dormitories.
Data shows that the majority of all violent crimes and weapon law violations investigated by university police at ODU last year happened at residential locations in their jurisdiction and in the streets and alleyways around the campus.
Weapons laws violations in colleges and universities include possessing, buying, receiving, using, stealing or transporting firearms. The violations also cover incendiary devices, explosives, clubs and knives. Between 2020 and 2025, more than half of all weapons violations involved firearms.
Despite the recent uptick in weapons law violations, a policy that could limit where firearms can be carried on college campuses was vetoed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, successfully navigated the bill through the General Assembly again this year. It is awaiting a decision from Gov. Abigail Spanberger.
Deeds first introduced the bill after the murder of three University of Virginia football players in 2022. Weapons on college campuses have long been a source of controversy and political debate across the United States. McKenna’s organization has been a prominent voice in that discussion.
He argues that well-trained, professional public safety officers are the most effective approach, rather than expanding laws that allow guns on campuses.
“There's a dangerous momentum,” he said. “They are using events like the shooting at Old Dominion University to make their argument that the only answer to violence is guns everywhere. Campuses are supposed to be environments of tranquility, growth and education, and they're not supposed to be training grounds or battlegrounds of the Second Amendment.”
Reach Kunle Falayi @kunle.falayi@vcij.org
