A Marine veteran who serves as the top prosecutor in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, has formally instructed his county sheriff not to enforce the state's new assault weapons ban, calling the law unconstitutional and unenforceable. Ryan Mehaffey, the elected Commonwealth Attorney, sent a letter to Spotsylvania Sheriff Roger Harris declaring that the ban signed by Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger cannot be lawfully carried out, and he is not alone.
Mehaffey's refusal, first reported by Fox News Digital, marks one of the sharpest local challenges yet to a gun-control measure that Spanberger signed into law last week. The ban targets the future sale and manufacture of semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns, and prohibits the future sale of magazines holding more than 15 rounds. It is set to take effect this July.
But in at least two Virginia counties, the law will exist only on paper. Mehaffey has made clear he will not prosecute residents under it, and Smyth County Commonwealth's Attorney Phillip Blevins, an Air Force veteran, has taken the same position.
Mehaffey grounded his refusal squarely in the Second Amendment and its Virginia analog. His argument centers on what he describes as the militia clause and the type of arms it was designed to protect.
"Our founders were careful to make sure when they drafted our founding document, that the ultimate right of the people was preserved to defend themselves and to defend their community."
He drew a line between weapons of mass destruction and the kind of small arms that have defined infantry service since the founding. In his telling, the constitutional test is whether a given weapon bears "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a regulated militia."
Mehaffey pointed to the M4A1 carbine, the U.S. military's standard infantry weapon, which is equipped with a 30-round magazine, double the capacity Virginia's new law allows. He noted that even in the Founders' era, the standard-issue musket came with 20 rounds.
"The second amendment may not mean that you are allowed to have a nuclear weapon, but what it does allow you to have is a basic infantry weapon. That sort of weapon is the core of what's protected by the Second Amendment."
His position is blunt: no state statute can override the supreme law of the land.
"The Second Amendment is the supreme law of the land, both in the U.S. Constitution and the analog in the Virginia Constitution. So, whatever law is passed by the General Assembly is not going to have the ability to supersede the Constitution."
The question of how far local prosecutors can go in declining to enforce state law is not new. Across the country, elected prosecutors have increasingly used their discretion to refuse enforcement of laws they view as unconstitutional, a trend that cuts in different directions depending on the issue and the officeholder.
Blevins, the Commonwealth's Attorney in Smyth County, framed his own refusal as a matter of oath, not politics. He told Fox News Digital that his position flows directly from the promise every Virginia officeholder makes upon taking the job.
"As Commonwealth's Attorney, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Virginia. That oath is not situational, and it does not change based on politics, headlines, or pressure from either side of an issue."
Blevins acknowledged the courts will ultimately weigh in. But he made clear he would not wait for a judge to tell him what he believes the Constitution already says.
"The Bill of Rights either means something, or it does not."
Both prosecutors, one a Marine, the other an Air Force veteran, cast their resistance in terms of service. Mehaffey said he wants "nothing more than to fulfill my office with honor and to be a good servant to the people that elected me to represent them and to stick up for their rights."
Governor Spanberger's office offered a different framing. A statement described the ban as "a critical step toward protecting families, communities, and the law enforcement officers who serve them," adding that "firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets."
Spanberger also acknowledged a gap in the legislation. The General Assembly declined to adopt her proposed amendment that would have carved out certain firearms frequently used for hunting. She said she would "work with the patrons to clarify this language", an admission that even the bill's supporters recognize its reach may be broader than intended.
That concession is worth pausing on. When the governor who signed a ban admits the legislature rejected her own effort to narrow it, the law's drafting looks less like careful policy and more like a rush to get something, anything, across the finish line. Prosecutors like Mehaffey and Blevins are now left to decide whether to enforce a statute its own champion wanted to amend before the ink dried.
The pattern of officials pushing back against overreach from their own government has played out at the federal level as well, where enforcement priorities and prosecutorial discretion have become flashpoints across the political spectrum.
Mehaffey and Blevins are not fighting alone. The National Rifle Association, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation have all filed lawsuits challenging the ban. The NRA and allied groups argue the law infringes on core Second Amendment protections, the same ground Mehaffey staked out in his letter to Sheriff Harris.
The ban classifies violations as a Class 1 misdemeanor, covering the importing, selling, purchasing, or transferring of prohibited firearms. That means Virginians who lawfully own these weapons today would not face prosecution for possession, but the law would freeze the market and block future sales once it takes effect.
For gun owners in Spotsylvania and Smyth counties, the practical effect of the prosecutors' stance is straightforward: even after July, no one in those jurisdictions will face charges under the new law. Whether other Commonwealth Attorneys across Virginia follow suit remains an open question. Fox News Digital reported that Mehaffey has received an "overwhelmingly positive" response from his community, though the basis for that characterization, whether polling, public comment, or informal feedback, was not specified.
The broader legal battle will likely turn on how courts interpret the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, which required firearms regulations to be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation. Mehaffey's militia-clause argument fits squarely within that framework, but the judiciary, not local prosecutors, will have the final word.
Meanwhile, the tension between state-level gun control and local resistance is not limited to Virginia. Across the country, courts and local officials continue to clash over the boundaries of enforcement authority when constitutional questions are in play.
Spanberger's office has not publicly responded to Mehaffey's refusal. Fox News Digital reached out for additional comment, but no response was reported. That silence is telling. When a county's top prosecutor, a combat veteran who swore the same oath the governor did, tells his sheriff to stand down, the governor's office owes the public more than a press release about "protecting families."
The ban's supporters will argue that prosecutors do not get to pick which laws they enforce. That argument has merit in the abstract. But it runs headlong into a practical reality: Commonwealth Attorneys in Virginia are elected. They answer to voters, not to the governor. And when a law collides with the Constitution, the oath of office does not require blind obedience, it requires judgment.
Mehaffey made his judgment plain. So did Blevins. The courts will eventually make theirs. But the fact that Virginia's governor signed a ban so broad she immediately wanted to amend it, and that legal challenges are already stacking up from multiple directions, suggests Richmond moved faster than the Constitution allows.
When the people you elected to enforce the law tell you a new statute cannot be lawfully enforced, that is not defiance. That is the system working exactly the way it was designed.
