Critics of Virginia’s new ban on assault weapons want you to believe that it’s prima facie unconstitutional. How you can tell it’s not: the Trump DOJ is putting its foot down, and that foot is Harmeet Dhillon.
“On April 10, I promised Gov. Spanberger that we would sue Virginia if she signed this unconstitutional weapons ban into law. I keep my promises,” said Dhillon, who you may remember being the foot put down by the DOJ last year to help the MAGAs on the UVA Board of Visitors run Jim Ryan out of the presidency at the school.
ICYMI
Now they’re using the UVA Law alum who has apparently never been told no to lead a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Virginia State Police alleging, per a release, “that a newly enacted Virginia law unconstitutionally bans the purchase and sale of ordinary semi-automatic rifles owned by millions of Americans.”
The new Virginia law is one of 12 – 10 other states and Washington, D.C. – in force nationwide, so, no, it’s not prima facie unconstitutional, as the gun lobby, their money people in the gun manufacturing set, and the Republicans they’ve bought and paid for in the state legislature and Congress are trying to suggest.
If these laws were just up and unconstitutional on their face, those other state (and DC) laws aren’t in effect, and the organized effort of the lobby, the money people and their legislative puppets wouldn’t be busy judge-shopping for local yokel judges to give them injunctions that make for good headlines in press releases, but little else.
A rando in a robe in Middle of Nowhere Virginia isn’t going to be the final arbiter on this; neither is Harmeet Dhillon, trying to make a federal issue out of the state law.
This one’s going to come down to the 4-3 MAGA majority on the Supreme Court of Virginia, whose collective future is already on thin ice.
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Chris Graham
