With just a little more than two weeks before Virginia’s ban on “assault firearms” and large capacity magazines is set to take effect, there’s disagreement about how the law will be enforced if it’s not put on ice by the courts before July 1.
What’s really interesting is that the disagreement isn’t just between Second Amendment advocates and their anti-gun counterparts. The lawmakers who are primarily responsible for foisting this infringement on the Commonwealth aren’t even on the same page.
Sen. Sadaam Salim, D-Fairfax, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, said the law only becomes relevant if a firearm falling under the state’s definition of an assault weapon acquired after July 1 is tied to another criminal act.
“If you happen to get (a firearm) from North Carolina, and then you come to Virginia and you don’t commit any crimes, none of us know that you have this,” Salim said. “Law enforcement in Virginia is never going to go knock on your door and ask you, ‘Do you have a gun at your home? When did you get that?’”
He said he does not expect the statute to result in “heavy charges,” but rather to limit what gun stores in Virginia can sell to residents.
However, Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, the House sponsor of the bill, said that violations for transporting assault weapons into the state can still be prosecuted even if it is not in conjunction with another crime.
“Anybody who brings an assault weapon into Virginia after July 1 is committing a misdemeanor and could face consequences,” Helmer said. “And if you choose to break the law, you should do so knowing full well that your doing so could get you caught, could land you with hefty fines, and even in jail.”
If the sponsors of the bill (I can’t say authors, since we all know the gun control groups were the ones supplying Salim and Helmer with the language) can’t even agree about what the ban covers, then how on earth are police and prosecutors supposed to know what the law is supposed to entail?
I think Helmer is right about the letter of the law, but I suspect Salim is correct about how the law will be enforced in practice… at least in those parts of Virginia where its enforced at all.
There are now at least fifteen commonwealth attorneys who have officially stated their intent not to enforce the ban on manufacture, sales, transfers, and possession in public of so-called assault firearms and large capacity magazines, with Lynchburg CA Bethany Harrison releasing a statement last Friday.
My office will not enforce these laws as it is my opinion they are unconstitutional based on the United States Supreme Court’s rulings in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 567 U.S. 1 (2022), District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), and U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1934). Constitutional challenges to these bills have already been filed. I expect that no matter the ruling of our state courts, these challenges will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
There is precedent for non-enforcement of Virginia statutes that are under judicial review based on legal challenges as we saw with the games of skill law. Virginia Code Sec. 40.1-103, the child endangerment statute, has language in it that was ruled to be unconstitutional and is not enforced even though the language remains in the statute. Finally, under Virginia Code Sec. 15.2-1627, the prosecution of misdemeanor offenses is entirely within the discretion of the Commonwealth’s Attorney. The Virginia Supreme Court recognizes that it is a function of the Commonwealth Attorney to exercise our discretion in the choice of criminal charges to pursue: “It is well established that the choice of offenses for which a criminal defendant will be charged is within the discretion of the Commonwealth’s Attorney.” In re Horan, 271 Va. 258 (2006) citing Barrett v. Commonwealth, 268 Va. 170, 178, 597 S.E.2d 104, 107–08 (2004) (quoting Kauffmann v. Commonwealth, 8 Va.App. 400, 410, 382 S.E.2d 279, 284 (1989)).
We will continue to enforce the laws in place to hold offenders accountable for their criminal acts no matter the weapon type used. We regularly prosecute offenders by seeking mandatory minimum and enhanced sentences for using weapons to commit crimes. The same legislators who voted for these bills to criminalize citizens for mere possession of a firearm seek to take away these enhanced punishments for our most violent and egregious offenses when the firearm is used to perpetrate the offense (HB 863). This leads me to believe that the passage of these laws is not about public safety but instead to further an ideology that fails to address the underlying reasons why a person would pick up a weapon and use it to harm others. Until we address those issues, we will continue to see offenders use any weapon at his or her disposal to hurt others. Our law-abiding citizens should not be left defenseless against those would do them harm. That is what this legislation will accomplish.
My guess is that prosecutors in Democrat-dominated parts of the state like Fairfax County, Richmond, and Norfolk will be as aggressive as they can about enforcing the new ban, while the new law is widely ignored in the rest of Virginia. Anti-gun Attorney General Jay Jones has no authority to prosecute misdemeanors, so his office cannot go after gun owners.
HB 21, however, which is also set to take effect on July 1, empowers the AG to sue gun stores that don’t follow the law or an undefined code of conduct, so you probably won’t see FFL’s act in defiance of the gun and magazine ban unless they’re willing to fight the law in court. There are a couple of gun stores who are already plaintiffs in the half-dozen or so lawsuits that have been filed challenging the new ban in state and federal court, but that doesn’t mean they’ll actively ignore the ban on sales if the law does take effect on July 1.
Gun sales are already about double what they were a year ago, and the spike will continue until the ban takes effect. I’d encourage Virginians to make their purchases as soon as possible… if their local FFL even has any soon-to-be-banned guns and magazines left in stock.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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