According to the Washington Free Beacon, legal scholars and Second Amendment advocates say that Spanberger’s remarks could become a powerful weapon for plaintiffs challenging the law in both state and federal courts. The statute, which takes effect July 1, prohibits the sale, manufacture, transfer, and import of semiautomatic firearms capable of holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition, sweeping in a broad range of commonly owned rifles and shotguns.
After signing the bill on May 14, Spanberger issued a statement declaring that “firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets,” while also lamenting that lawmakers had rejected her proposed clarifying changes.
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“While the General Assembly chose not to adopt my amendment that specifically carves out certain firearms frequently used for hunting, I will work with the patrons to clarify this language,” Spanberger said, effectively acknowledging that the law, as written, covers popular hunting arms.
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That admission places her squarely at odds with the Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the Second Amendment protects weapons “in common use for lawful purposes,” a standard that has since guided federal courts in striking down overbroad gun restrictions.
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Her phrasing, legal experts note, tracks almost verbatim the “common use” test that has become the constitutional litmus for whether a firearm can be banned, potentially giving challengers a ready-made exhibit from the governor herself.
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“The governor's acknowledgment that the law covers common hunting models will likely be cited in Second Amendment challenges. If the law is not amended, she could prove the main witness against her own signed legislation,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in a May 17 blog post.
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Turley further warned that “If the Virginia law remains unchanged, Spanberger may find that her signing statement will feature greatly in the appeal,” underscoring how damaging a governor’s own words can be when courts scrutinize legislative intent.
Bill Sack, senior director of legal operations at the Second Amendment Foundation, which has joined the National Rifle Association and the Firearms Policy Coalition in a federal lawsuit against Virginia, echoed that assessment and said Spanberger had effectively conceded the core constitutional issue.
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“‘To the extent Governor Spanberger herself acknowledges that many of the firearms which will now be banned in Virginia are ‘frequently used for hunting,’ and many of the others, like the AR-15, are owned by Americans in the tens of millions, it will be a hard sell in court that these guns aren't ‘in common use,’” Sack told the Washington Free Beacon.
“‘Any arm that is in common use cannot be banned. That's what the Supreme Court has already said.’”
Spanberger’s office declined to respond to questions about whether she now regrets the wording of her statement or plans to seek further legislative fixes before the law takes effect.
This is the second time this year that a high-profile progressive initiative backed by Spanberger has triggered a wave of litigation and institutional backlash, raising questions about both the legal craftsmanship and political judgment behind her agenda.
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Democrats’ attempt to gerrymander Virginia’s congressional map—an effort Spanberger supported despite earlier assurances that she had no intention of redistricting mid-decade—was struck down when the state’s highest court ruled the scheme illegal.
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The U.S. Supreme Court swiftly rejected Democrats’ emergency appeal, leaving the rebuke from Virginia’s justices in place and dealing a blow to the party’s efforts to entrench its power through the courts rather than the ballot box.
On the gun bill, Spanberger initially returned the measure to the General Assembly, asking for amendments that would have exempted certain semiautomatic shotguns widely used for hunting and sport shooting.
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When the legislature refused to adopt her changes, she signed the bill anyway, effectively endorsing a sweeping prohibition she had already acknowledged was overbroad.
Pro-Second Amendment organizations, firearm manufacturers, and gun retailers responded almost immediately with a barrage of lawsuits in both federal and state courts.
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Sack’s federal complaint invokes the “common use” standard and contends that the ban violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, while separate suits in three state courts argue that the law infringes Virginia’s constitutional protections for the right to bear arms and the right to hunt, with one filing in Fauquier County Circuit Court stressing that “Spanberger herself acknowledged” that commonly used firearms are affected.
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Even so, legal analysts caution that the core of the litigation will focus on the statute’s text rather than the governor’s political rhetoric, however damaging it may be.
“Her statement is not helpful to those who are defending the law, but it's the law itself that matters,” William and Mary constitutional law professor Timothy Zick told the Free Beacon.
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“What does the statute actually ban?” Zick asked, noting that courts will parse the specific features and definitions in the law rather than rely solely on Spanberger’s characterization.
He observed that plaintiffs may have a stronger chance in Virginia courts, which lack binding precedent on such bans, than in the federal Fourth Circuit, which upheld Maryland’s assault weapons law in 2024, a decision the Supreme Court declined to review.
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Zick added that challengers could prevail either on broad constitutional grounds or by attacking vague and subjective terms in the statute, such as the prohibition on any pistol grip that “protrudes conspicuously,” language that invites arbitrary enforcement.
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“It's hard to handicap the state court case since there has not been much in the way of prior litigation on the issue,” he said, underscoring the uncertainty surrounding how Virginia judges will interpret the state constitution’s protections.
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The new law is already deepening tensions within Virginia’s justice system, where partisan clashes over redistricting, crime, and prosecutorial discretion have become increasingly sharp. Democrats lashed out at the state supreme court over its gerrymander ruling, with one legislator vowing he would “make sure” the justice who authored the majority opinion would “not serve anymore come this January,” a threat that conservatives see as a direct assault on judicial independence.
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Several local prosecutors have publicly declared that they will not enforce the assault-weapons ban, signaling a brewing standoff between progressive lawmakers in Richmond and officials closer to their constituents.
Spotsylvania County commonwealth’s attorney Ryan Mehaffey said that the ban, along with a new prohibition on carrying so-called assault weapons in public, is “unconstitutional and cannot be lawfully enforced,” while Campbell County sheriff Whit Clark told a local ABC News affiliate it was “nothing more than a gun grab.”
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For many Virginians, especially in rural and suburban communities, the controversy underscores a broader divide between a Democratic leadership intent on aggressive gun control and citizens who view firearm ownership as a fundamental right, not a privilege to be whittled away by shifting political winds.
As the July 1 effective date approaches, Spanberger’s own words about “frequently used” hunting firearms may prove pivotal in courtrooms across the state, where judges will decide whether her signature achievement stands—or becomes another example of overreach struck down by the very constitutional order it sought to sidestep.
