Virginia, your day is Tuesday. The moment July 21 begins, the statewide injunction against the assault weapons ban stops being a promise on paper and becomes the rule for every police department and every prosecutor you have. One county judge, one stack of certified mail, and the crown jewel of Spanberger’s gun agenda goes dark from the Cumberland Gap to the Chesapeake Bay. This page walks you through exactly what switches off, what switches back on, and what to keep an eye on between now and the gun counter.
July 21 is not a hearing and it is not a new ruling. It is a delivery date. Judge Jeffrey L. Campbell ordered the clerk of the Washington County Circuit Court to send a certified true copy of his injunction order, a copy teste, to every law enforcement officer in Virginia as defined in § 9.1-101, and to every Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office in the state. Once that paper lands, no agency anywhere in the Commonwealth can claim it never got the word. Not Fairfax. Not Richmond. Not Arlington. Nobody.
“Although one would think that one would have to be living under a rock not to be aware of these proceedings and their like across both the Commonwealth and the nation, this Court recognizes that reasonable notice of this injunction should be given to all of law enforcement prior to the onset of the terms of the same. ... The Court will amend the onset date of this injunction to July 21, 2026 to allow adequate time for delivery of the same.”
That is the entire reason the date exists. The injunction was already won. July 21 is just the day the notice runway runs out.
I read both of them start to finish, and you can too. They are public, and the second one might be the most consequential three pages a Virginia gun owner has seen in a generation.
Campbell holds that SB 749, the Firearms Ban, and HB 217, the Magazine Ban, likely violate Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution. Every plaintiff has standing. He cites Marbury v. Madison, runs the Bruen two-step as persuasive authority, and finds the state’s entire historical case rests on one 1934 statute that the National Firearms Act made obsolete the same year it passed.
At the hearing he asked the state a simple question: would a student who passed off Article I, Section 13 as his own writing get charged with plagiarizing the Second Amendment? The Commonwealth conceded he might well be.
The state wanted the injunction limited to the named defendants: state police plus the prosecutors of Washington, Chesterfield, Frederick, York, and Giles counties and the City of Chesapeake. The plaintiffs wanted all of Virginia. Campbell called it a case of first impression and sided with all of Virginia, onset July 21.
The signed order the clerk’s certified copies attest to. The state’s window for objections closed July 15. As of July 19 nobody has published it: not the court, not the parties, not the press. The two letters above are the public record of what it says.
Two laws go dark on Tuesday, on the same terms the court set June 29. The ban on importing, selling, manufacturing, purchasing, or transferring what SB 749 calls an assault firearm, a definition the court found sweeps in virtually every semi-automatic centerfire rifle, AR-15s included. And HB 217’s ban on selling or transferring magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
Until July 21 that freeze only protected six localities and benched the state police. Now the map fills in. All of it, at once, from the Eastern Shore to the coalfields.
“...the injunction imposed by the Court’s prior ruling shall be extended to statewide application and enjoin all law enforcement agencies of the Commonwealth and its localities ... from enforcement of the provisions of the Bans within all localities and jurisdictions of the Commonwealth...”
Here is the part worth understanding, because the Attorney General is going to keep calling it lawless. In 2025 the Supreme Court held in Trump v. CASA that federal district courts cannot issue universal injunctions, because Congress never gave them that power. Campbell took CASA seriously and asked the question it demands: did my legislature give me that power? Virginia’s did, decades ago. It was sitting right there in the Code the whole time, waiting for someone to open the book.
“Indeed Chapter 24 of Title 8.01 of the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, gives a broad grant of authority to Circuit Courts to award injunctions, within and without of the Circuit, and in matters involving statewide application. See §8.01-620, et seq. ... Partial relief would not suffice, in this Court’s view, to achieve the intent of this statute within the context of the facts of this case.”
And the problem he was fixing is one you lived with for the first three weeks of July: a ban that was frozen in one county and chargeable in the next.
“Should this Court’s prior ruling be limited only to party defendants herein, a person could freely transport an AR-15 through Washington County without fear of running afoul of the law. However, if they crossed the county line into Grayson County then, arguably, they could be charged for the same ... This Court has concerns about the treacherous patchwork of enforcement that this may lead to...”
Be clear about what the order does and does not do. It does not order one gun store to sell you anything. It removes the state enforcement threat that stopped them. Some shops will have racks stocked Tuesday morning. Some will stay gun-shy on their lawyer’s advice, and that is their right, the same way it is your right to spend your money somewhere else.
“Virginia, we’re back. A statewide injunction goes into effect July 21st, and Palmetto State Armory will begin accepting Virginia orders today. Orders will be held until we are legally able to ship on July 21st. ... PSA is ready. Virginia is back open.”
“Can you walk into a gun shop today (July 9, 2026) and buy an AR15? I don’t think so. The statewide injunction goes into effect on July 21 unless the injunction is stayed by the Supreme Court – be very careful. Wait until no sooner than July 21.”
“After July 21, the new AWB law won’t be an impediment to the sales of ‘assault firearms’ and magazines that hold more than 15 rounds ... it will be up to individual FFLs to decide if they will be selling ‘assault firearms’ during the temporary injunction.”
The industry trade group NSSF says dealer guidance is coming. Selling under a preliminary injunction is a risk call, because if a higher court dissolves it the window slams shut. That is why the careful lawyers on our side keep saying the same thing: the date is July 21, not a day sooner.
Jay Jones hated this ruling at the top of his lungs. Then watch what he actually did about it, because the roar and the retreat do not match.
“Judge Jeffrey L. Campbell’s statewide declaration is wrong, reaches far beyond the case before him, and is unsupported by Virginia precedent. A circuit court injunction must stay within proper legal limits and cannot bind people or parties who are not part of the lawsuit.”
Then his own office put the white flag in writing, on its own letterhead:
“The opinion states this statewide injunction shall apply starting July 21, 2026. ... Entry of a preliminary injunction itself does not void or invalidate the new laws. Rather, entry of these injunctions bar enforcement.”
Now be cool about this part, because precision is what separates us from the people we criticize.