A growing number of Virginia's county prosecutors are refusing to enforce Gov. Abigail Spanberger's ban on modern semiautomatic firearms, citing the U.S. Constitution, the Virginia Constitution, and the Supreme Court's landmark Bruen decision. At least fourteen top local prosecutors have now declared the law unconstitutional, and two of them are explaining, in detail, why they believe the governor signed a statute that cannot survive legal scrutiny.

Spanberger, a Democrat, signed SB 749, the so-called "assault weapons" ban, into law on May 14. Within a day, the National Rifle Association, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the Firearms Policy Coalition had all filed suit. Within two weeks, county-level prosecutors across rural and exurban Virginia began announcing, one by one, that they would not bring charges under the new statute.

The defiance is not symbolic posturing. These are elected Commonwealth's Attorneys, the officials who decide which criminal cases to prosecute in their jurisdictions. When they say they will not enforce a law, that law is effectively dead letter in their counties. And their reasoning, as reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation, is rooted not in defiance for its own sake but in a careful reading of federal and state constitutional text.

Clarke County: a sheriff and a prosecutor on the same page

Clarke County Commonwealth's Attorney Matthew Bass told the DCNF that he began his legal research well before the bill reached the governor's desk. He saw what was coming out of Richmond and started reviewing the constitutional arguments.

"It didn't take a crystal ball to see that proposed legislation from Richmond, including SB 749, would like come under constitutional scrutiny. As with any policy and/or practice decision in my office, I started with legal research into the issue. I am not reinventing the wheel here; there is an abundance of well-thought-out briefing of these issues by a number of publicly-available resources."

Bass said he then sat down with Clarke County Sheriff Travis M. Sumption to discuss practical enforcement, likely constitutional challenges, and whether the two officials could reach a shared position. They announced their joint refusal on May 29.

That kind of coordination matters. A prosecutor who declines to bring charges and a sheriff who declines to make arrests create a unified front. Residents of Clarke County will not face prosecution under SB 749, period.

Powhatan County: the Bruen framework in plain English

Powhatan County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Cerullo grounded his refusal squarely in the Supreme Court's June 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That ruling held that any restriction on firearms must be "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearms regulation." Cerullo applied that standard to SB 749 and found it lacking.

"SB 749 restricts firearms by banning a list of common firearm features. It labels firearms possessing these features as 'assault firearms.' It gives no contemplation to how banned weapons are used, if they are in broad circulation, or if they have been a mainstay for sporting or other lawful applications for decades."

Cerullo's point cuts to the heart of the legal debate. Under both Bruen and the earlier District of Columbia v. Heller decision, firearms in common use for lawful purposes enjoy Second Amendment protection. SB 749 bans rifles based on cosmetic features, pistol grips, adjustable stocks, barrel shrouds, rather than any demonstrated pattern of criminal misuse. The law targets how a gun looks, not how it is used.

That distinction is not academic. As the Daily Caller noted in a May analysis, even The New York Times acknowledged in a May 13 article that modern semiautomatic firearms bearing a resemblance to the AK-47 were previously "ubiquitous" before the AR-15's rise in popularity. If these rifles are ubiquitous, they are by definition in common use, and Heller says that matters.

Fourteen counties and counting

The first prosecutor to break ranks was Spotsylvania County Commonwealth's Attorney Ryan Mehaffey, who posted his declaration on Facebook the day after Spanberger signed SB 749. His language was direct and unambiguous.

"These laws are undoubtedly inconsistent with the historical tradition of Virginia, as articulated by Miller, and are thus unconstitutional under Bruen. Moreover, Heller secures the right of Virginians to keep and bear the most popular rifle in America, an AR-15, for the lawful purpose of readiness for service in the Virginia militia, as the Founders intended."

Within days, others followed. Shenandoah County Commonwealth's Attorney Elizabeth Cooper said the statutes "completely ignore the intention of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution, and Article I, Section 13 of the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution." Goochland County Commonwealth's Attorney John L. Lumpkins, Jr. wrote in a May 27 letter that the legislature had "passed a state law that infringed on the 'higher law' of our land."

By early June, a dozen prosecutors had made similar declarations. The trend shows no sign of slowing. In Democratic-run states across the country, the gap between what governors sign and what local officials enforce keeps widening, and Virginia is now the sharpest example.

Spanberger's broader push, and its legal setbacks

The semiautomatic ban is not an isolated act. Spanberger has signed a series of anti-Second Amendment measures into law this session, and the courts are already pushing back.

On April 22, Spanberger signed HB 1525, a "universal background check" law that the General Assembly passed after concurring with her amendments. Those amendments directed the Virginia State Police to enforce a background check requirement that a court had previously blocked by injunction. The Virginia Citizens Defense League challenged the new law, and on June 4 the court reaffirmed its injunction. The governor tried an end-run around a judicial order, and the judiciary said no.

Spanberger also signed bills banning so-called "ghost guns" and targeting the firearms industry. The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action described the package as unconstitutional. The governor did not respond to the DCNF's request for comment.

The pattern is clear: Richmond passes aggressive gun-control legislation, pro-Second Amendment groups file suit, courts issue or reaffirm injunctions, and local prosecutors decline to enforce what remains. Spanberger may have the votes in the General Assembly, but she is losing ground in the courtrooms and in the counties.

The legal landscape in Virginia stands in contrast to governor's races in other states, where Second Amendment protections remain a defining issue for candidates seeking executive office.

Why prosecutorial discretion matters here

Critics of the prosecutors' stance will argue that elected officials cannot simply ignore laws they disagree with. That objection has surface appeal, but it misunderstands the role of a Commonwealth's Attorney.

Prosecutors exercise discretion every day. They decide which cases to bring, which charges to file, and which laws to prioritize. When a prosecutor concludes that a statute is unconstitutional, declining to enforce it is not lawlessness. It is a judgment call grounded in the same oath of office that binds every public servant: to uphold the Constitution.

These prosecutors are not freelancing. They are reading the same Supreme Court opinions that federal judges will apply when the lawsuits filed by the NRA, SAF, and FPC reach their courtrooms. Bass said he reviewed publicly available legal briefings. Cerullo cited Bruen by name and applied its framework. Mehaffey walked through Heller, Bruen, and the historical tradition of firearms regulation in Virginia.

Spanberger's office, meanwhile, has offered no public legal defense of SB 749's constitutionality under the Bruen standard. The governor signed the bill, posed for the cameras, and left the legal arguments to others. When culture-war issues drive policy faster than constitutional analysis can keep up, this is the result: laws that look good in press releases but collapse under judicial review.

The constitutional argument in plain terms

The Supreme Court's framework is not complicated. Heller (2008) held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. It specifically noted that firearms "in common use" for lawful purposes are constitutionally protected. Bruen (2022) went further: any firearms regulation must be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearms regulation. The government bears the burden of proving that tradition exists.

SB 749 bans firearms based on a list of features. It labels them "assault firearms." But the rifles it targets, AR-15-pattern rifles chief among them, are the most popular rifles in America. Millions of Americans own them. They are used overwhelmingly for lawful purposes: target shooting, home defense, hunting, and competition.

No historical tradition in American law supports banning the most commonly owned rifle in the country. The prosecutors who refuse to enforce SB 749 are not making a radical claim. They are applying the Supreme Court's own words to a law that ignores them.

The situation in Virginia echoes broader tensions in states where Democratic governors push aggressive agendas that outpace both legal precedent and the consent of the governed in large swaths of their own states.

What comes next

The lawsuits filed by the NRA, SAF, and FPC will work their way through Virginia's courts. If the pattern from other states holds, the plaintiffs will seek, and likely obtain, preliminary injunctions. The court's June 4 decision reaffirming its injunction against HB 1525's background check provision suggests that Virginia judges are not inclined to rubber-stamp Richmond's gun-control agenda.

Meanwhile, more prosecutors may join the refusal. Fourteen have already declared SB 749 unconstitutional. Virginia has 120 counties and independent cities, each with its own Commonwealth's Attorney. The governor cannot force a local prosecutor to bring charges. She can direct the Virginia State Police to investigate, but without a willing prosecutor, investigations go nowhere.

Spanberger bet that she could sign a sweeping firearms ban and dare her opponents to stop her. The courts, the prosecutors, and the Constitution are answering that dare.

When fourteen elected prosecutors in your own state read your signature legislation and conclude it violates the highest law of the land, the problem is not with the prosecutors.