For an opposing point of view, see “A law Virginia passed but never got to use,” by Andy Parker.
This summer, in a courtroom in Washington County — a county named for the father of our country — the Constitution of Virginia got its day in court. And the Constitution won. I am honored, as a lawyer, to represent the courageous plaintiffs who dared to stand up against the illegal government intrusion upon their Second Amendment constitutionally protected rights.
On June 29, Judge Jeffrey L. Campbell of the Twenty-Eighth Judicial Circuit halted enforcement of two of the most sweeping gun bans ever enacted in this commonwealth: Senate Bill 749, and House Bill 217, which criminalized the purchase of entire categories of the most commonly and lawfully owned firearms in America, and the standard magazines that come in the box with millions of them. When the attorney general’s office then tried to shrink that ruling to cover only a handful of plaintiffs, the court once again made itself clear: the injunction applied statewide, protecting all Virginians from these unconstitutional laws. Today, from Abingdon to Virginia Beach, law-abiding Virginians can once again walk into a licensed dealer and lawfully buy the same firearms their neighbors in more than forty states can purchase without a second thought.
Let’s understand what these laws actually tried to do. They did not touch criminals; dangerous criminals do not submit to background checks and cannot lawfully purchase firearms. Rather, these bills targeted the law-abiding citizen. These were not exotic weapons — they were rifles, pistols, and shotguns sold for decades at licensed dealers across the commonwealth, bought by our neighbors for home defense, for hunting season, or for a Saturday at the gun range. Overnight, the peaceable Virginian who purchased the most popular rifle in America — the farmer defending his livestock from coyotes, the mother protecting her children, the hunter, the sport shooter — became a presumptive criminal, facing up to twelve months in jail, a $2,500 fine, and the loss of the right to own a firearm at all. That is not public safety. That is punishing your neighbors for exercising a constitutional right.
And it is an important right — written in ink in our own Bill of Rights. Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Virginia declares that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Virginians placed those words in our Declaration of Rights in 1971 — and in the same charter of liberty George Mason drafted in 1776, before there was a United States of America. Mason warned Virginia’s Ratifying Convention in 1788 that the surest way to enslave a people is “to disarm them.” Those words in our constitution are not for decoration. They are a command to the government and a limitation of its power over the people.
The United States Supreme Court has told us exactly how laws like these must be tested. Under the Heller and Bruen cases, the government may not ban arms in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, and it bears the burden of proving that any restriction is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. There is no balancing test, no “trust us, it’s for your own good” limitation. So, consider for a moment what Richmond is trying to ban: Just last year, the Supreme Court itself observed that the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the country — more than 30 million are in circulation, more, as one federal judge put it, than there are Ford F-Series pickup trucks on the road. Magazines holding more than 15 rounds are owned by the tens of millions; many of America’s best-selling handguns are sold every day with these standard, straight from the factory magazines for use by gun owners. There is no historical tradition — none — of banning the most commonly owned arms in the nation. It has never been done because our Constitution does not allow it.
And here is the fact that should end the debate in Virginia: semi-automatic firearms and magazines holding more than 15 rounds already existed in 1971, when Virginians wrote “shall not be infringed” into Section 13 of the state Constitution. Our citizens knew exactly what arms they were protecting when they wrote it, and the General Assembly cannot now pretend, 55 years later, that the Constitution never contemplated them.
So how did we get here? One-party control. With the House of Delegates, the Senate, and the Governor’s Mansion all in the hands of a single party, these bans were pushed through over the objections of those of us who warned, from the Senate floor, that they could not survive constitutional review. In my years in the Senate, I have never seen a majority so indifferent to the limits on its own power. But a legislative majority is temporary. The Constitution is permanent. When a majority treats the Bill of Rights as an obstacle rather than an oath, it is the solemn duty of the courts to say no — and in Washington County, a court did exactly that.
Let me also correct the record, because the headlines keep getting it wrong. The plaintiffs I represent in this case are not a national organization. Rather, Santolla v. Katz was brought by Virginians: individual citizens, family-owned firearms businesses fighting to keep their doors open, and the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, which has served the commonwealth’s hunters and competitive shooters for generations. They stood up for every gun owner in Virginia — and because the court’s order protects “any person,” every Virginian now stands protected with them.
A preliminary injunction is a first step, not a final victory, and the gun control advocates in our commonwealth will surely try to keep defending these unlawful bans. Let them try. This fight was never about one party or one election — the right to defend yourself and your family belongs to every Virginian — Republican, Democrat and independent alike. It’s a legal marathon, not a sprint that we are now engaged in, and mark my word, we will be successful in defending and preserving our rights all the way through to the Supreme Court. Because here in Virginia — the birthplace of American liberty, the home of Mason, Madison and Henry — “shall not be infringed” still means exactly what it says.
William M. Stanley Jr. is a member of the Senate of Virginia and lead counsel for the plaintiffs in Santolla v. Katz, now pending in the Circuit Court of Washington County.
