The Patriot Post® · Virginia's Anti-Gun Laws Under Fire

As anyone paying attention to the news may recall, most of this spring’s political discourse was taken up by a redistricting referendum in Virginia. While Democrats won at the ballot box, they lost three times in the courts where it counts, with the final word delivered by the Supreme Court denying the Democrats’ gerrymandering efforts.

The commonwealth may be heading down the same path with a gun bill that our Thomas Gallatin told you about in March when it passed. The law was passed two months ago, but it was not signed by Democrat Governor Abigail Spanberger until last week, once the coast was clear from the redistricting election. At the time of passage, Spanberger claimed she wanted more protections for hunters in the bill, but Gallatin posited, “The last thing Spanberger wants to do is sign a law that would motivate the state’s Republicans and independent voters to show up en masse to vote against the gerrymandered map, given that the state is nearly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.” Indeed, she signed an unaltered version of the bill, ignoring her concerns about sportsmen. She claimed, “While the General Assembly chose not to adopt my amendment that specifically carves out certain firearms frequently used for hunting, I will work with the patrons to clarify this language.”

Pardon me if I don’t see that occurring. In fact, as legal eagle Jonathan Turley predicted, “The governor’s acknowledgment that the law covers common hunting models will likely be cited in Second Amendment challenges. If the law is not amended, she could prove the main witness against her own signed legislation.”

As gun bans go, the legislation is what’s pretty much become the garden variety for such measures. While incorrectly billing it as an “assault weapons ban,” the Virginia Mercury says, “Senate Bill 749, sponsored by Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, D-Fairfax, and its companion, House Bill 217 by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, prohibit the future sale and manufacture of certain assault-style firearms and ban the sale of magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds.”

The ink on Spanberger’s signature was barely dry before a slew of lawsuits were filed against the bill, as predicted by Virginia Republicans.

“We warned Democrats repeatedly that their gerrymandering plan would be found unconstitutional. They didn’t listen. We were right,” said Virginia House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore. “We also warned them repeatedly that their effort to ban some of the most commonly owned firearms was unconstitutional. They didn’t listen. The Supreme Court has already spoken to this in [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen], and Democrats are going to waste even more taxpayer money just to lose. Again.”

They’ll lose because various Second Amendment groups have already stepped in to object, with the federal government perhaps following as well. As described by Breccan Thies in The Federalist, Spanberger and Virginia Democrats were hit by a deluge of suits: “The NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and two NRA members filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the law; the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) and Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a lawsuit in a Virginia county court; multiple firearm retailers, gun ranges, and other organizations filed a lawsuit in state court, and U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon promised the Department of Justice would file one as well.”

Thies goes on to note, however, that certain members of the High Court have become frustrated at lower courts ignoring their clear jurisprudence in both District of Columbia v. Heller and Bruen. “Our continued refusal to hear Second Amendment cases only enables this kind of defiance. We have not heard argument in a Second Amendment case for nearly eight years,” declared Clarence Thomas in 2018. “If this case involved one of the Court’s more favored rights, I sincerely doubt we would have denied certiorari.”

We could have had movement last year from a Maryland case involving a ban on AR-15s in the state or Rhode Island’s magazine limits, but only three justices wanted to take up those cases. However, as lawsuits stack up and the Supreme Court’s frustration builds, we may finally see clarity restored, thanks to yet another overreach by Virginia Democrats who campaigned as moderates but govern as radical leftists.

Perhaps they need a refresher course on both the Virginia Constitution and the U.S. Constitution, which both declare that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”