Virginia sheriffs and prosecutors are drawing their line in the sand

The bottom line

Virginia sheriffs and Commonwealth attorneys across the state are publicly refusing to enforce Abigail Spanberger’s assault weapons ban, and they have both constitutional and practical grounds to do it. A law with no one willing to enforce it is not a law in any meaningful sense. The courts need to hurry up, but the sheriffs buying time deserve real credit.

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This article is based on analysis from Bearing Freedom. Watch the original video. This is commentary, not legal advice.

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What Spanberger actually signed

On May 15, 2026, Governor Abigail Spanberger signed SB 749 / HB 217 into law. It takes effect July 1, 2026.

The law bans the future sale, manufacture, import, and transfer of so-called “assault firearms,” defined using a one-feature test for semi-automatic centerfire rifles and a two-feature test for pistols. Any semi-automatic centerfire rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and has even one of the following is now illegal to buy, sell, or transfer in Virginia: a threaded barrel, a flash suppressor, a thumbhole or pistol grip stock, a second handgrip, or a folding or collapsible stock. The pistol test is similar. The magazine ban covers anything over 15 rounds. Violations are a Class 1 misdemeanor, carrying up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

The law grandfathers guns and magazines already owned. You can keep what you have, as long as you didn’t buy it on or after July 1. But you can’t sell it to anyone in Virginia, can’t transfer it to a friend or family member, can’t buy a new one. The practical effect, if enforced, is to freeze the civilian market for the most popular rifle platform in America.

This is not a fringe or edge-case firearm being restricted. There are somewhere between 20 and 25 million AR-15-pattern rifles in civilian hands in the United States. They are by any honest measure in “common use,” which is exactly the legal standard the Supreme Court laid out in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and that the Court’s later decisions in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) made even harder for gun-grabbing states to work around. Bruen requires the government to demonstrate that any firearms regulation is consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation in America. There is no historical tradition of banning the most commonly owned rifle in the country.

So when Spanberger signed this thing, she was signing something almost certainly headed for the garbage can of judicial history. The question is what happens between now and the day a federal court finally strikes it down.

The sheriffs who are saying no

The answer, apparently, is this: a growing number of Virginia’s elected sheriffs and Commonwealth attorneys are just not going to enforce it.

Amherst County Sheriff L.J. “Jimmy” Ayers III put it plainly. The citizens of Amherst County have the right to bear arms as long as they are qualified individuals to do so. He doesn’t care what Spanberger says. He is not enforcing this. Ayers had already said in February, before the bill even passed, that the law’s definition of “assault weapon” was far too broad and that it would only affect law-abiding citizens while criminals keep buying through illegal channels. He was right then. He is right now.

Campbell County Sheriff Whit Clark was even blunter. He called the law “nothing more than a gun grab” and said it is “an infringement on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners.” Clark said he has laid his hand on the Bible three times and sworn to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States, and he intends to do exactly that. His office formally stated it “will not infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens to legally possess obtained firearms, magazines, ammunition, or related equipment.”

Spotsylvania County Commonwealth’s Attorney G. Ryan Mehaffey, a Marine veteran, wrote a letter to Spotsylvania County Sheriff Roger L. Harris laying out his position in legal detail. He cited Bruen directly, writing that SB 749 and SB 727 (the public carry ban, a separate Spanberger gift) “are undoubtedly inconsistent with the historical tradition of Virginia, as articulated by Miller, and are thus unconstitutional under Bruen.” He also made the oath point that I think is the core of this whole argument: “That oath is not situational, and it does not change based on politics, headlines, or pressure from either side of an issue.” Sheriff Harris also declared that the legislation “cannot be lawfully enforced” under current Supreme Court precedent.

Smyth County Commonwealth’s Attorney Phillip Blevins, himself an Air Force veteran, joined the refusal. His policy explicitly carves out violent offenders, prohibited persons, drug traffickers, and people using firearms in furtherance of crimes. This is targeted prosecutorial discretion applied to purely technical violations of a law he views as unconstitutional, not blanket nullification.

And Buckingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney Kemper Beasley III said his duty is to uphold both the U.S. and Virginia constitutions, that both protect the individual right to keep and bear arms, and that he anticipates the courts will eventually overturn what the legislature passed. He is right.

At least five Commonwealth Attorneys across Spotsylvania, Smyth, Powhatan, Pulaski, and Scott counties have publicly stated they will not prosecute violations. Sheriffs in Amherst, Campbell, Spotsylvania, Henry, and Patrick counties have all made public statements to the same effect. The number keeps growing.

This has happened before in Virginia

What’s happening now is not unprecedented. In late 2019, when Democrats took control of the Virginia legislature for the first time in over two decades and Governor Ralph Northam started promising gun control, the Virginia Citizens Defense League helped ignite a Second Amendment sanctuary movement that spread faster than anyone expected.

By early 2020, more than 140 Virginia cities, counties, and towns had passed Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions. Sheriffs stood at the podiums alongside citizens at packed board of supervisors meetings. It was one of the most remarkable grassroots responses to state-level gun control the country had seen.

And now it is happening again. In 2026, with actual laws on the books rather than just threatened ones, the VCDL and other groups organized a Second Amendment Sanctuary 2.0 movement. By March 2026, 48 counties and four individual sheriffs had reaffirmed or newly adopted sanctuary resolutions. Culpeper, Bedford, Campbell, Wythe, Spotsylvania, Westmoreland, Shenandoah. The list keeps growing.

The legal critics will say these resolutions are “symbolic.” They are correct that a county board’s resolution has no binding legal force over state law. The Virginia AG has said so. Federal courts have said so when the question has come up in other contexts. But that analysis misses the point. The resolutions are not legal instruments. They are political ones. They signal to the community what the elected sheriff and board will and will not do. They give residents information they can act on. And when the resolutions are backed by sheriffs who have the actual enforcement authority and are choosing not to use it against law-abiding gun owners, they carry real weight.

The legal limits, and why they matter here

The critics of sheriff non-enforcement, mostly from the gun-control side, like to say that sheriffs do not get to pick which laws they enforce. There is something to that argument in narrow cases. A writ of mandamus can theoretically compel an official to perform a non-discretionary duty. And in theory, the state could attempt to use other enforcement mechanisms, like the Virginia State Police, to do what county sheriffs will not.

But prosecutorial discretion is not a myth. It is a bedrock principle of American criminal law. Commonwealth attorneys have always had the power to decline prosecution in cases they view as lacking merit or as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court recognized prosecutorial discretion in cases going back generations. Using that discretion to decline prosecution of purely technical violations of a law you believe violates the Second Amendment under Bruen is not lawlessness. It is exactly how the constitutional system is supposed to work when a legislature passes something clearly beyond its authority.

Sheriffs have analogous discretion over how they deploy their deputies. No one can force a sheriff to devote limited departmental resources to hunting down people with 16-round magazines while the state police exist and can theoretically pick up the slack. And the state police are not going to blanket rural Virginia arresting gun owners over magazine capacity. That is not happening.

So the practical effect of what these sheriffs and Commonwealth attorneys are doing is real. In their counties, the law is not getting enforced. Not symbolically. Actually.

The lawsuits are coming too

Alongside the enforcement refusals, the legal challenges are piling up fast.

Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation, together with the Virginia Citizens Defense League, filed a 59-page complaint in the Circuit Court for Lancaster County the same day Spanberger signed the bill. They asked for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to block enforcement before July 1. Their complaint relies on Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution, not just the federal Second Amendment. That is a smart strategic choice that keeps the case in state court and forces Virginia to defend the law under its own constitution’s text.

The NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation have filed separately. The NSSF-backed case, Black v. Hook, also seeks an emergency injunction. Multiple legal challenges, in multiple courts, moving simultaneously.

I think GOA and VCDL get their TRO. The standard for a preliminary injunction requires showing likelihood of success on the merits, risk of irreparable harm, and that the equities favor relief. Given that courts have been blocking similar laws in states like Illinois and Maryland post-Bruen, the likelihood-of-success prong looks strong. And if the law takes effect and people get arrested, that is irreparable harm.

But none of that is guaranteed. Courts move slowly. July 1 is close.

Why the sheriffs matter even if the courts act

Even if the courts issue an injunction before July 1, the willingness of these sheriffs and prosecutors to stand up matters.

It signals to future legislators that passing unconstitutional gun laws has a cost. The law they passed sits there on paper, unenforced in huge swaths of the state, challenged in multiple courts simultaneously, with elected law enforcement officials on record saying it is a gun grab.

The 2A community has also learned something since 2019. The sanctuary movement back then was largely reactive and symbolic. What is happening now is more concrete: sheriffs with actual enforcement authority making actual policy decisions about how their offices will operate after July 1.

And if the courts somehow let this law stand, the sheriffs are the last line between Virginia gun owners and prosecution for owning a perfectly legal rifle with a threaded barrel.

Campbell County Sheriff Whit Clark said he has sworn to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States three times. He intends to do that. So does Sheriff Ayers in Amherst, and every other sheriff and Commonwealth attorney who has gone on record saying they are not doing Spanberger’s dirty work for her.

I think they are heroes. The Second Amendment does not enforce itself. It takes people willing to stand in front of it, hand on the Bible, and mean it.