For an opposing point of view, see “‘Shall not be infringed’ still means something,” by state Sen. Bill Stanley.
On July 1, Virginia’s ban on assault weapons officially became law. In the six weeks since, it has never been enforced. Not once. A circuit court judge in Washington County issued an injunction before the law could take effect, later ruled to apply statewide. Virginia’s attorney general, whose office is charged with defending the law, then asked the court to pause the case entirely until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in. Every party to the litigation — the Department of Justice, the gun-rights plaintiffs, and the commonwealth’s own legal team — agreed to the pause.
That is not a small procedural footnote. It means a law passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor has existed, in practice, for exactly zero days.
Virginia is not alone. Eleven states and the District of Columbia now restrict assault-style weapons, including Rhode Island, which enacted its own ban this year alongside Virginia’s. Every one of those laws now hangs on a single case. In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear two consolidated Second Amendment challenges — Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins — that will determine whether firearms like the AR-15 are so widely owned that the Constitution places them beyond state regulation. Oral argument is expected this winter, with a ruling likely by next June.
The signal from the lower courts has not been encouraging for supporters of these laws. In July, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit struck down New Jersey’s assault weapons ban by a 10-5 vote. The majority opinion was written by a judge appointed by President Biden — not the outcome of a court stacked with skeptics of gun regulation, but a bipartisan reading of existing Second Amendment doctrine, specifically the “common use” standard from District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That should worry anyone hoping Virginia’s law survives intact.
Virginia’s own experience illustrates how these laws can be neutralized well before any court rules on their merits. Within weeks of the bill’s signing, thirteen commonwealth’s attorneys announced they would not prosecute violations, citing their own constitutional judgment. Around the same time, gun-rights organizations filed suit in several rural circuits considered favorable to their position. One of those suits, filed in Washington County, produced the injunction now blocking enforcement statewide.
Notably, one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs in that litigation is state Sen. Bill Stanley, who still holds his Senate seat while doing so. He opposed the bill on the floor and lost. Now, as an attorney, he is working in court to accomplish what he could not accomplish in the chamber where he still serves — and when Attorney General Jay Jones moved to consolidate the scattered lawsuits into one court, Stanley helped keep them spread across the rural circuits where they had already found success. A sitting legislator representing clients against a law passed by his own legislature, in courtrooms he had a hand in choosing, is not barred by any Virginia ethics rule from doing so. It is the kind of dual role that draws scrutiny mainly when someone bothers to point it out.
Not every approach to firearm regulation is being challenged the same way. Colorado took a different route this year, requiring safety training before the purchase of certain semi-automatic firearms rather than banning them outright. That law took effect August 1 and was met almost immediately with its own legal challenge, opponents arguing the training requirement functions as a de facto barrier to purchase. Whether it survives offers a second, parallel test of how far states can go in regulating these weapons.
What Virginia’s experience shows, more than anything, is how disconnected the legislative process has become from the actual application of law. A bill can pass both chambers of the General Assembly, receive a governor’s signature and still never touch the transaction it was designed to regulate — not because the public changed its mind, but because litigation strategy in a handful of rural courtrooms accomplished what opponents could not accomplish at the ballot box or in Richmond.
I have spent more than a decade advocating for gun safety measures since my daughter Alison Parker was murdered on live television in 2015. I understand as well as anyone that passing a law is not the same as it functioning. Virginia’s assault weapons ban may yet survive the coming Supreme Court ruling. But for now, it stands as a case study in how a law can be signed, celebrated and effectively suspended — all before it has been tested even once.
Andy Parker is a gun safety advocate based in Martinsville and the father of Alison Parker.
