DOJ Tells Virginia ‘See You in Court’ After Latest Gun Ban
Virginia defined those guns as “assault firearms.”
It sounds like the DOJ will sue Virginia after Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed two bills that bans “the importation, sale, manufacture, purchase, and transfer of many semiautomatic firearms” and magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
New: Per LIS and Senator @SalimForVA, @GovernorVA
has signed a bill that will make it illegal to import, sell, manufacture, purchase, or transfer an assault weapon in Virginia, with certain exceptions.The bill will also make it illegal to import, sell, barter, transfer, or… pic.twitter.com/sJrW0Y4FFJ
— Tyler Englander (@TylerEnglander) May 15, 2026
Virginia defined those guns as “assault firearms.”
*sigh*
I guess assault weapons doesn’t work anymore, meaning Democrats have to change the language again!
Assault firearms! They’re hooked on that word, aren’t they?
See you in court! 👉🏽👉🏽 👉🏽 pic.twitter.com/lL37OTUOXH
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) May 15, 2026
The DOJ recently sued Denver, CO, over its ban of constitutionally protected firearms.
You know, those big scary black guns.
In that case, the DOJ pointed out that “assault weapon” isn’t even a real term. Maybe that’s also why Virginia used “assault firearm.”
I imagine the DOJ’s lawsuit will mirror the one against Denver, arguing the law violates the Constitution by restricting “certain constitutionally protected semi-automatic rifles.”
The AR-15-style rifles are the most popular rifles in America.
I will never stop telling people that AR-15-style rifles are the best guns for women, especially those with handicaps.
My left side is handicapped. My AR-15 only requires my right arm to use it. The rifle is lightweight enough for my left hand to hold. There is hardly any kickback helping me aim better.
The NRA also filed a lawsuit.
https://twitter.com/NRA/status/2055089011832823978/history
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They need to do it soon.
I got in ValPak yesterday an ad from a FLGS here, telling me I would get one additional free 30 round magazine with every AR-15 purchase.
I’d asked them what they would do if the bills became law. They said they would likely sell all they could before 1 July and then take everything else and head back to Tennessee (IIRC). And there are probably 3 other stores that I know of just off the top of my head that will do the same (go out of business) come 1 July.
So, regardless of any lawsuit, we will lose some ability to purchase certain items in VA come 1 July.
what part of “shall not be infringed” is so hard to understand?
The part where the communists don’t get to control everybody
The bit that says not.
The question is what is an infringement. There is legitimate ambiguity around that term; the exact boundaries of the RKBA have not yet been explored, so there are many edge cases that may or may not infringe it, and the courts have to decide those.
But this isn’t one of those ambiguous cases. It’s pretty clear that the RKBA does include the right to own these particular weapons, and therefore any ban on them does infringe it.
Malarkey. The whole of the Second Amendment is fairly well explored over the last several decades. The powers that be have refused to actually follow those boundaries, but they’ve absolutely been explored.
Oh, and yes, the courts have refused to “explore” some areas because they’re afraid what they might find. But those areas have been explored well by others – and those others regularly scold the courts for not taking the cases up and making rulings in accord with the clear language of the Constitution.
No one but courts can explore such a thing. Others can only speculate. And the question isn’t what the second amendment’s text means — that’s pretty clear. Anything that infringes the RKBA is out. The question is what does the RKBA itself include.
It’s the same as the “freedom of speech” in the 1A. That right can’t be abridged at all, but it doesn’t include all speech whatsoever. There are forms of speech that were never free, and were never meant to be free, and therefore restrictions on such speech doesn’t abridge the freedom. Likewise there are likely weapons that we don’t have and never the the right to keep and bear, so restrictions on those won’t infringe the right.
In the case of the freedom of speech that boundary has been thoroughly explored, and SCOTUS has been clear that no more exceptions to it remain to be discovered. But it took decades to discover all the exceptions. In the case of the RKBA that work has only begun, because until recently the 2A wasn’t taken seriously, so there was no exploration of the right’s boundaries.
Nonetheless, this case is nowhere near the boundary of the right. The infringement is clear.
Indeed “infringe” is regarded as ambiguous in the present day. Was it in the past? For a while I have been proposing a good historical research of that one term, and have corresponded with a few on the topic. Is it like curtilage? Yes, it is like that? What about the ideas of fringe, like in cloth? Like the fringe edge of a lace mat that might be placed on table? Yes, like that too. Fringes on clothing? Hmmm… the first president was a big, big proponent of fringed combat shirts. We even know him today for his interest in fringed bedspreads.
Presidents fabrics are interesting clues, but the source of “infringe” in the context of the 2nd is from Newton’s work on optics. At the time of the education of the founders, Newton was second only to god. His work “Opticks” defines the ideas of light and dark. Even today in lens design we use the term “Newton’s Rings” and “fringes” to explain the ideas of the boundary between what is outside, inside, and in the transition.
The 2nd use of “infringe” is pretty clear: if a proposed law touches the fringe of an action, the law is not permitted. It is not if the proposed law “impinges” on the action, which would mean direct contact, but rather that if it even gets close (in the curtilage, not in the house) the law is not valid.
There is a good book to be written on this topic, but the funding is pretty thin.
No, it’s not “infringe” that’s unclear, but the boundaries of the right. What does infringe it and what doesn’t. If you don’t know the exact line between your property and your neighbor’s, you can’t always know whether you’re infringing on his property. But when you’re right in the middle of his lawn there’s no question that you’re infringing.
At the time of the ratification of the Constitution, anyone could own any of the “weapons of war” including fully armed ships. When the Rough Riders shipped off to Cuba, they carried a Colt “potato digger” machine gun… gifted to them by Tiffanys. That was the first true machine gun in the US arsenal. Only other multi-shot weapon was the hand cranked Gattling guns in 45/70. Hearst also gave them a fully armed ship. Those would fit… commonly available arms.
Yes. None of that gives us an exact definition of the right to keep and bear arms. We still don’t know everything that it includes, and what it might exclude. Just as 100 years ago we didn’t know exactly what the freedom of speech includes and what it excludes, because the courts had only just started taking it seriously and applying it to the states.
This is an excellent example of why I’m a second amendment absolutist; no government body in the United States should be allowed to regulate firearms in any way shape or form.
Once one of them is successful in enacting one law or regulation, it just opens the door to the next.
There is nothing the left will stop at until every citizen (except their flying monkeys of course) is disarmed.
If this means that psychopaths are allowed to buy Tommy Guns I am 100% ok with that. Mr. Psychopath should understand that his victim is going to shoot back but there’s nothing more dangerous than a government that has slipped its leash (like Virginia right now).
I’m OK with some regulation.
Like fraud. Or dangerous manufacturing of the weapon.
(If it goes kablooey instead of bang, because of something in the manufacturing, then they should be held responsible. You know, like every other thing is supposed to be handled.)
Legally, what’s the difference between firearm and artillery?
Strictly speaking 2A says “… keep and bear Arms …” rather than firearm, but what counts as arms?
Would a micro nuclear warhead fired from a mortar or RPG type weapon qualify as ‘arms’? If not why not?
If you think that anybody who wants a micro nuke, and has the money to afford a micro nuke, doesn’t already have a micro nuke, second amendment or not, you’re delusional anyway.
There are important issues here, despite what people usually bloviate when it comes to nuclear weapons. As a physicist with a decent understanding of the design of nuclear weapons, I think we should think about this more.
Oddly, Trump gets this right. His mention of “nuclear dust” gets to the difference between weapons, arms and ammunition. Design of sub-optimal nuclear weapons is pretty easy. A sub-optimal nuke will still flatten a city.
Think of the “nuclear dust” as the ammunition — it is the only hard part. I can design a bomb casing and initiator in a few hours, given that there is plenty of “nuclear ammo”. Ammunition control is what Trump is working on in Iran. Arms control, for the nuclear world, is a horse that left the barn a long time ago.
Switching back to the definition of “arms”, the law as it stands today is pretty much arbitrary and capricious. Things more than 3″ in diameter propelling projectiles at a speed faster the the combustion speed of a thousand-year-old mix of common chemicals, well those are “dangerous devices” and not “arms”. Why 3″? Just because. Why those chemicals? Because we say so.
Technically you do not “bear” artillery. This is based on the language used at the time of the American Revolution and the writing of the Constitution. You can only “bear” personal arms. Anything crew served is not “personal arms.”
Having said that, the Founders considered cannons to be something you could and should legally own (“keep”). I think they would have thought machine guns were the same; though, again, you should not necessarily bear them – that is, carry in public.
Grenades are another issue with “bearing” – they are very indiscriminate weapons, and, in a public setting could harm lots of innocents, aside from the bad guys. But, with some basic safety requirements, they should be allowed under “keep.”
The founders enshrined Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which require privately owned warships, or else there is nobody to issue them to.
.
Crew-served, my poopdeck.
Keep and bear arms doesn’t have express limits. Congress was well aware of ‘crews’ necessary to operate all sorts of cannon and chose not to create any distinction. As I and others have routinely pointed out the Congressional power to issue ‘letters of Marque and Reprisal’ to ordinary Citizens to serve as privateers necessarily encompasses ALL military arms to include crew served.
If we’re splitting hairs though, both the M-249 SAW squad automatic weapon (light ‘machine gun’) and the M-240B (medium ‘machine gun’) can and are carried and operated by a single person. Grenades are merely a modern upgrade to ‘stinkpots’ commonly in use during and even before founding era.
IMO an individual Citizen is fully justified to purchase, keep and bear any ‘arms’ with tjethe exception of ‘Nuclear, Biological, Chemical’ weapons. If some billionaire or group of millionaires want to buy a dang Battleship, fill the fuel bunkers, stock the magazine and sail off to shoot 16 Inch main gun rounds on a weekend at a derelict vessel they purchased and towed into position…. good for them, it’s nobody else’s business any more than it would be for folks sailing off on a 32 ft sailboat.
If Republicans were smart, they would pounce on this and start calling her “Nanny Spanny” It’s a nickname that will stick, and remind everyone that she is trying to nanny state guns, which has started to see bipartisan and independent voter support for the right to bear arms.
Why not Nanny Span?
Or комиссáр (komissar) Spanberger to reflect her Hard Left turn?
Meanwhile in Minnesota, the Republicans are fighting and making things miserable for the DFL (Democrat Farm League) anti-2nd Amendment bills.
https://youtu.be/bHGLk4fSyF8?si=UT04C4ndUHBq9NWP
I’d rather the DOJ tell these anti-constitutional politicos ‘See you in prison for your egregious and aggressive attempt at deprivation of rights against the citizenery’, but I’m silly that way.
Put them in prison or it’s still just **clown world** where they’ll do it again because why not? Zero consequences.
Voting for invalid laws is not a crime.
Violating the Constitution sure should have stronger consequences.
Meh, ‘conspiracy to deprive rights under color of law’ seems like it would violate several statutes. If the Judiciary were handing out TRO/Injuction forbidding the enforcement of statutes that, on their face, violate the 2A in context of Heller, McDonald and Bruen then sure…but that’s not happening. Instead Citizens are consistently deprived of Constitutionally protected 2A rights by Cray Cray registration schemes, permitting schemes, onerous ammo/firearm tax schemes, and even where they successfully navigate through the impermissible ‘may issue’ schemes to make a purchase so they may ‘keep’ they are effectively prohibited from exercising their 2A right to ‘bear’.
In sum the legislature passes and Gov signs blatantly unconstitutional statutes which the LEO and DA are supposed to enforce or refuse and resign/be relieved of duty/office. So then this conspiracy is implemented with State Judges adding their participation to the unconstitutional tragedy. Heck some States have a conveyor belt approach where upon SCOTUS ruling action A.1 impermissible they immediately implement action A.2 which is functionally equivalent and thus not only continues but broadens the conspiracy. Immunity my ass, that y for good faith mistakes not an unlimited get out of jail free.card’ and it is past time the distinction was made and sanity restored.
These are all great comments.
As late as the year of my birth, legislators at the state and federal level took their oaths of office seriously. At least some of them. What is missing in the present day is paying attention to the oath of office and following the Constitution. As commenter Husqvarna explained above, there is no crime voting for invalid laws… even though the oath is clearly broken.
The other half of the problem is the judiciary presumes, by their own ruling, that the laws passed by legislators are constitutional. This is an invented, extra-constitutional doctrine like the US Senate filibuster. It can be changed. For civil rights there has been a contrary doctrine where it is presumed that there will be problems with voting, and with policing. Federal courts have run police departments and voting districts when there has been persistent violation of the constitution in an area. Should some federal court decide to occupy the domain of 2nd Amendment law in, say, all of New England? Perhaps yes, as there has been persistent bad behavior by the lawmakers.
If argue that NY in particular should have a pre clearance regime for 2A issues along with CA and HI. For that matter SCOTUS should be willing to shift the momentum and impose an injuction on enforcement of these at face value unconstitutional statutes until these cases work through the next decade of trial and appeals to end up back at SCOTUS for review on the merits.
In fact it does violate a statute, possibly two consecutive ones. But courts have honored those statutes only when the charging party was the federal government, and never in any other cases brought under them.
I call it the “curious case of the lawdog in the night-time.”
The Virginia Gov (D-CIA) said that these firearms had no place “on the street”. The going justification is that these firearms have only one purpose… to kill large numbers of people as quickly as possible. Which brings up the point that federal, state and local agencies are awash in these “assault weapons” and the real ones. What are these agencies contingency plans to kill large numbers of people very quickly and why? Either their rhetoric applies to all or not at all. The semi-automatic firearm was first embraced by the civilian market around 1900. No military wanted them as battle doctrine was different. Then came WWI and the French and British bought American semi-auto hunting rifles to see how they would do… but the trench warfare was too tough. Of course, John Moses Browning designed the BAR during WWI. The bolt action rifle was first and foremost a true military designed firearm. This is just one long road to total abolition of 2A and the primacy and irreversibility of total governmental control.
Either their rhetoric applies to all or not at all.
Oh, but they are government, so they must automatically be the good guys. Because the gov’t is always morally correct.
Unless, Republicans are in charge. Or white males. Or a Jew, maybe….
Also, IMO, the police should be allowed NOTHING that is not available to the average citizen. Period. If I can’t carry it, then they can’t carry it. If I can’t own or buy it, they can’t own, buy, or keep it in the police arms locker.
Peelian Principle #7:
I’m applying for a fat government grant to conduct a study to determine what part of a government uniform turns a boogeyman into an angel… and turns his “assault weapons” into “patrol rifles.”
One wonders why the DOJ had to wait for Virginia to fall to see someone in court. After all, on day one of the administration, they could’ve seen Massachusetts in court because they already have such a law and have had for years.
Yeah. Maybe they wanted a case with better facts to take action against a hastily passed, poorly written statute? Alternative explanation, Pam Bondi isn’t AG now.
Or New York, for its blatant defiance of Bruen. That would have been proper, given it was defiance of federal authority.
Or WA State.
The term “assault” modifying weapon of firearm has a limited shelf life. In the revolutionary war, an assault weapon was a muzzle loading black powder rifle. Besides clearly being unconstitutional, it doesn’t even make sense.
It’s patterned on “assault rifle”, which is an actual thing. It’s aimed at people who have heard of assault rifles but aren’t quite clear on what they are, and won’t know the difference.
And it’s because Second Amendment folks kept making the argument about the actual definition of “assault rifle” and getting in their way over it.
Exactly, Josh Sugarman of Handgun Control expressly stated that the confusion of what a real “assault weapons” was would be used to ban guns. Deception to gain their goals.
Limited as in a MP-44 as was coined to get past Adolf himself to get it into production.
And when Hitler found out how impressive the MP-44 was … he coined the term “assault rifle”… Sturmgewehr …StG44.
4th circuit. Already been mitigated over Maryland law so circuit precedent is against them. They *might* have luck in state court. Otherwise we need the Supreme Court to take a case.
VA is getting dogpiled, but Dems win either way. They can win by running out the clock until a different administration. Or, they lose the lawsuit but win with donations to fight gun crazy MAGA.
They are calling the Supreme Court’s bluff. So far the SC has been unwilling to take a gun case. I would not bank on Roberts. Roberts hates little people with guns as much as the Dems.
I don’t know how much it’s hate, versus fear.
Roberts fears the loss of power of the Supreme Court and the loss of the status quo in terms of process and procedure. So many in the gov’t fall into that boat that’s going to capsize soon.
The “teeth” of the Bill of Rights is 2A and today’s Court (majority) is toothless…. so they won’t want to make the real choice. They figure that they can rule their out of crises. How many armies does SCOTUS have? It’s “We the People” and disarming us… disarms them. After that obeying SCOTUS is just wishful thinking if the Dems go all out.
“It’s “We the People” and disarming us… disarms them. ”
nah. Supreme Court justices have federal bodyguards with sub guns.
The “F-15s and nukes” argument?
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Trump has all those things, and the only thing that has saved him so far has been the Grace of God.
I am talking about honoring the decisions of SCOTUS…. when a rogue administration ignores the rulings…. as Lincoln did. The only reason laws are followed is the force used to keep them.