Tonight, both sides say this will have big implications.

On who wins in Virginia this November are Devin Dwyer reports from Blacksburg, sleepy rolling hills of southwest Virginia, once again at the center of America's age old debate over guns.

We are on the air because there has been a serious shooting incident on the Virginia Tech campus, 13 years after a gunman terrorized the campus of Virginia Tech, killing 32 students and faculty. 00:00:48.120 --> 00:01:1.550 The horror from that April morning, still fresh like every few minutes like the body count would go up and up, and I just I just sat on the couch and I cried and cried, and I just could not. 00:01:3.360 --> 00:01:6.590 Katherine Cable was born and raised in Blacksburg, Virginia. 00:01:6.600 --> 00:01:12.740 Her father was a professor a tech in 2007 and what she didn't lose any loved ones that day, she says.

the massacre was a breaking point than a deep way how somebody can just violently walk into your life and just shake it upside down.

And just that the impact of it is so huge like that.

It's not just the people directly affected the ripple effect on to the community and the feeling out of that, it's just it just changes the whole way.

You look at your life to think that, too, no, to go from one of the people who thinks it can't happen here to being one of the people who knows it does happen here, and by God, it happens everywhere. 00:01:45.300 --> 00:02:4.790 As a mother of two, Cables spent the last decade pleading with lawmakers to do something about gun violence and watched in horror last year when tragedy struck again in Virginia Beach, gunman took 12 lives and a municipal building this'll month. 00:02:4.790 --> 00:02:18.230 Virginia's Democrat led state government is set to answer those demands, enacting the toughest package of new gun laws in a generation, including limits on handgun purchases, tighter background checks and new red flag laws.

This is the final sea change of everything we've worked for and been advocating for what almost call it a blood price like we paid the price.

We buried our dead.

You owe us like you owe us these changes so that we can at least go to sleep at night knowing that it's a little less likely.

Again.

The stringent new restrictions are not sitting well with many Virginia gun owners.

The phrase awoken the sleeping giant is probably the best way to describe the Second Amendment Group.

Now Mitchell Tyler and his family have owned a gun shop in Roanoke for years.

He says sales are up dramatically since Democrats began pushing for tighter gun laws. 00:02:59.420 --> 00:03:2.380 Gun owners are a threat to politicians at the ballot box. 00:03:2.390 --> 00:03:4.210 That is where we are most dangerous. 00:03:4.480 --> 00:03:13.030 The shop has signed up hundreds of concerned customers for town hall meetings in the new restrictions and is registering new voters for 2020 on the spot.

Because of this groundswell, the sanctuary cities and counties I think you'll see Virginia go read this year.

In the presidential election in January, more than 20,000 gun owners turned out in protest at the state Capitol in Richmond.

On nearly every Virginia county has voted to declare itself a second amendment sanctuary for guns in opposition to the new laws.

Sheriff Hank Parton of Montgomery County, home to Virginia Tech, and Sheriff Richard Von of nearby Grayson County support the sanctuaries.

It's basically a statement from a jurisdiction that passes, Ah, Second Amendment sanctuary status that we do not like these bills. 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:1.760 A lot of folks feel like their defense mechanisms are being taken away from them. 00:04:2.250 --> 00:04:9.230 We don't have a gun problem here in Southwest Virginia, and we also feel like that some of these new gun bills are gonna be ineffective. 00:04:9.460 --> 00:04:16.970 The sheriff's won't say whether they will refuse to enforce the state's new gun laws, but many gun owners air hoping they'll do just that.

There were people that were going to say sanctuary, and I'm gonna be safe.

If you'll just pass us, they won't be able to prosecute that belief.

Concerned Cris Talk, a criminal defense attorney and former Republican chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, he took a stand in opposition to sanctuary status.

We did not have the authority to say they wouldn't be prosecuted.

That was gonna be truthful with people and unfortunately, in this day in time, it seems like it's acceptable for politicians not to be truthful.

Talk brokered a compromise.

Montgomery County narrowly rejecting the sanctuary label but formally expressing support for gun rights at Virginia attack, we found students respectful of each other but deeply divided. 00:04:59.630 --> 00:05:4.600 I still think that people should be afforded the right to protect protect themselves. 00:05:4.720 --> 00:05:11.960 Josh Thompson, an Army ROTC cadet at Tech, heads a student group pushing for concealed carry rights on campus.

It's like a part of everyday life.

People grow up with guns.

So if you have such a big part of your life, like taking away, then that that's gonna have some effect around around the world where I'm from, nearly everyone has a gun, So I like the idea.

Just start taking those away is kind of farfetched for me.

Not every person who is trying Thio, advocate for gun safety, is saying, Hey, we're gonna take away every single gun you have.

Andrew Bender, a senior at Tech, graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, one year before gunman killed 17 of his peers. 00:05:50.640 --> 00:06:6.100 You can still be a supporter of the Second Amendment, and I respect people have those beliefs, but they're still measurements that we can take, such as the gun show loophole and universal background checks that can help minimize the amount of guns that are in the hands of people who shouldn't have them. 00:06:6.110 --> 00:06:13.720 Once you find the middle ground, it's it's a lot easier to find things that you agree on over rather than other things to disagree.

But building consensus on guns has been painstaking.

In Virginia, even with Democrats and control, a long sought ban on assault weapons failed to advance just last month.

Is there a lesson in Virginia?

Absolutely everybody is talking about.

I want to be the next Virginia.

You say we're gonna do gun control.

Boom.

We're getting gun control done.

You do not back down from your promises.

You make sure that you keep faith with your people.

That forceful political message from Democrats in 2020 drying and equally forceful response from pro gun Republicans elections have consequences.

If Democrats wants to get control and they tried to do something on the federal level to increase the gun legislation, it's gonna affect all of us.

He's gun owners that didn't come out and vote last year.

They will be registered or not.

You agree with that? 00:07:0.210 --> 00:07:0.650 Yes, sir. 00:07:1.360 --> 00:07:2.620 You think there's gonna be a big wave? 00:07:2.630 --> 00:07:3.180 I do. 00:07:3.190 --> 00:07:13.350 I do believe the Giants not sleeping any longer in this key swing state with the wounds still fresh from unthinkable tragedies, many voters feel caught in the middle.

I think either extreme position is not healthy.

Hoping a deeply divided country can take even a small step toward compromise.

American first before I'm a Republican.

And I'm hopeful that we can sit down and talk with folks and we will take a step back from the rhetoric for ABC News Live.

I'm Devin Dwyer in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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