The top prosecutor in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, told the local sheriff on Friday that he will not enforce the sweeping firearms restrictions Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed into law the night before, declaring them flatly unconstitutional under recent Supreme Court precedent.
Commonwealth's Attorney G. Ryan Mehaffey sent a letter to Spotsylvania County Sheriff Roger L. Harris laying out his legal reasoning. He cited three landmark Supreme Court decisions and said the new laws cannot be "lawfully enforced." The move came less than 24 hours after Spanberger, a Democrat, put her signature on the bills Thursday evening.
Mehaffey's letter targeted two measures by name: the assault weapons ban (SB 749/HB 217) and the public carry ban (SB 727/HB 1524). Both restrict the possession and carrying of modern semiautomatic firearms in ways that Mehaffey argues Virginia's own legal history does not support.
In his letter, as the Daily Caller reported, Mehaffey grounded his refusal in the Supreme Court's framework from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires firearm regulations to be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearms regulation. He wrote:
"The Assault Weapons Ban (SB 749/HB 217) and the Public Carry Ban (SB 727/HB 1524) are undoubtedly inconsistent with the historical tradition of Virginia, as articulated by Miller [v. United States], and are thus unconstitutional under Bruen."
Mehaffey did not stop there. He also invoked the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms in common use for lawful purposes.
"Moreover, Heller secures the right of Virginians to keep and bear the most popular rifle in America, the AR-15."
That last point carries statistical weight. The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated in a January release that more than 32 million "modern sporting rifles," a category that includes the AR-15, are in circulation across the United States. Banning a firearm owned by tens of millions of Americans raises obvious questions under the Heller standard, which protects arms "in common use."
Mehaffey's stance drew immediate support from the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors. Vice Chair Andrew "Drew" Mullins posted on X praising the prosecutor and tying the refusal to a broader local declaration. The county, Mullins said, had moved to declare itself a "Second Amendment sanctuary."
"My good friend and fellow Oath Keeper, Commonwealth Attorney Ryan Mehaffey is supporting our resolution declaring Spotsylvania County a 2A Sanctuary county. We will not comply with Governor Spanberger's infringement on our unalienable Constitutional rights."
The "sanctuary" framing is deliberate. For years, progressive cities declared themselves sanctuaries from federal immigration enforcement. Now conservative localities are borrowing the same playbook, except in defense of a right explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
Virginia's political landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years. Democrats have faced setbacks in state courts on redistricting and other fronts, but they retained enough legislative power to push through the gun restrictions Spanberger signed. The governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Mehaffey's letter was not the only pushback. Pro-Second Amendment organizations filed suit to have the bans struck down as unconstitutional just minutes after Spanberger signed the bills Thursday evening. The specific organizations and the court where the lawsuit was filed were not immediately identified in reporting.
The speed of the legal challenge signals that gun-rights groups had their filings ready well before the governor picked up the pen. That kind of preparation reflects how widely expected the constitutional fight was, and how confident Second Amendment advocates are in their legal position after Bruen.
The broader political dynamics in Virginia have grown increasingly contentious. Internal fractures among Virginia Democrats have surfaced on multiple fronts, from redistricting battles to policy disagreements, even as the party's leadership pushes an aggressive legislative agenda.
The federal government moved quickly to signal its own position. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon posted on X Thursday night, and the post signaled the Trump administration's intent to sue over Virginia's new restrictions.
That threat is not empty. The Department of Justice had already sued the city of Denver on May 5 over a similar firearms ban. The very next day, May 6, DOJ filed separate litigation seeking to throw out Colorado's magazine ban. Virginia's new laws now appear to be next in line for federal legal action.
The pattern is unmistakable. Blue-state and blue-city governments pass firearms restrictions. The federal government, armed with the Bruen framework, challenges them in court. Local prosecutors in conservative counties refuse to enforce them in the meantime. The result is a patchwork of defiance and litigation that leaves gun owners caught between competing layers of government.
Virginia Republicans have fought similar battles on other fronts. The Supreme Court rejected a Virginia Democratic redistricting appeal not long ago, preserving a congressional map the left wanted redrawn. That case, like this one, illustrated how Democratic overreach in Richmond can run headlong into constitutional limits.
Mehaffey's position raises a question that goes beyond Virginia: What happens when a local prosecutor, sworn to uphold the law, concludes that a state law violates a higher law? Prosecutorial discretion is a well-established feature of the American legal system. Prosecutors routinely decline to bring charges for a variety of reasons, including resource constraints and legal judgment.
But a public declaration of non-enforcement on constitutional grounds is different. It is a direct challenge to the governor and the legislature. It puts the sheriff in the position of deciding whether to follow the state or the county's top legal officer. And it sends a message to gun owners in Spotsylvania County: you will not face prosecution here for possessing a lawful firearm that Richmond just tried to ban.
Whether other Virginia prosecutors or sheriffs will follow Mehaffey's lead remains to be seen. The fact pack does not identify any additional local officials who have taken the same position. But the combination of local non-enforcement, immediate lawsuits, and federal litigation threats creates a formidable wall of resistance to Spanberger's signature gun-control achievement.
Virginia's political fights have drawn national attention before. Speaker Johnson traveled to the state to rally Republicans against a redistricting ballot measure backed by Democrats. The firearms fight now joins redistricting as another arena where Virginia serves as a testing ground for the limits of progressive governance.
The legal arguments Mehaffey marshaled are not fringe theories. Heller, decided in 2008, established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep firearms in common use for lawful purposes. Bruen, decided in 2022, went further, requiring that any firearms regulation be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of regulation. Together, they created a framework that has put assault weapons bans on shaky constitutional ground across the country.
Spanberger and Virginia Democrats chose to press forward anyway. They passed the bills. The governor signed them. And within hours, the legal and political backlash arrived from every direction, from a county prosecutor's letter, from gun-rights organizations' lawsuits, and from the Trump administration's Department of Justice.
The governor's office stayed silent. No statement. No defense of the bills' constitutionality. No response to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment. That silence may be strategic, or it may reflect a recognition that the legal terrain is hostile.
Either way, Spotsylvania County has drawn its line. Mehaffey told the sheriff his office will not bring these cases. The Board of Supervisors declared the county a Second Amendment sanctuary. And the courts will now decide whether Richmond's new laws survive contact with the Constitution.
When a local prosecutor has to explain to his own sheriff why a brand-new state law cannot be enforced, the problem isn't the prosecutor. The problem is the law.
