The U.S. Department of Justice filed lawsuits against Virginia and California on Wednesday, alleging both states have enacted firearms restrictions that violate the Second Amendment. The twin filings mark the most aggressive federal action yet against state-level gun bans and land in the middle of a Supreme Court term that is already reshaping the boundaries of the right to keep and bear arms.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the lawsuits in blunt terms, as CBS News reported:
"The Constitution is not a suggestion. The Second Amendment is a sacred right belonging to all Americans, even those in California."
The Virginia suit targets a new state law that bans the sale, manufacture, transfer, and import of semi-automatic rifles and pistols with magazine capacities exceeding 15 rounds. The California suit seeks to halt that state's so-called "Glock ban" and block enforcement of California's "Handgun Roster," which limits what legal firearms residents may purchase. The DOJ characterized both restrictions as unlawful.
Virginia's ban was signed into law by Governor Abigail Spanberger on May 15, 2026, the Washington Times reported. The law took effect July 1, the same day the DOJ filed its suit. Virginia became the twelfth jurisdiction to enact such restrictions, joining California, Illinois, New York, and other states with Democratic-controlled governments.
The DOJ's news release stated that Virginia's law "unconstitutionally bans the purchase and sale of ordinary semi-automatic rifles owned by millions of Americans." It went further, calling the AR-15 "the most popular rifle in America" and describing Virginia's enforcement of the ban as "a pattern or practice of conduct by the commonwealth's law enforcement officers that deprives the citizens of Virginia of their constitutional right to buy and sell arms protected by the Second Amendment."
The suit names both the state of Virginia and the Virginia State Police as defendants.
The federal challenge did not come as a surprise. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon had publicly pledged on April 10, 2026, to sue if Spanberger signed the ban. When the governor went ahead, Breitbart reported, Dhillon made good on that promise:
"On April 10, I promised Governor Spanberger that we would sue Virginia if she signed this unconstitutional weapons ban into law. I keep my promises. Law-abiding Americans should not have to live under threat of criminal sanction for simply exercising their Second Amendment right to possess arms owned by millions of their fellow citizens."
Governor Spanberger defended the legislation when she signed it, saying, "Firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets." But the DOJ's position is that the firearms in question are constitutionally protected precisely because they are commonly owned, not exotic weapons of war.
Even before the DOJ acted, the law was facing resistance inside Virginia itself. Prosecutors in at least five counties, Spotsylvania, Smyth, Powhatan, Pulaski, and Scott, announced they would not enforce the ban, citing Second Amendment protections and existing Supreme Court precedent.
Smyth County Commonwealth's Attorney Phillip Blevins Jr. put it plainly:
"After careful review of the legislation and existing Supreme Court precedent, I find the assault weapon ban signed by the Governor on May 15, 2026, unconstitutional, and as a result, unenforceable."
Pulaski County Commonwealth's Attorney Justin L. Griffith struck a similar note:
"I am not going to take law-abiding citizens as of June 30th, 2026, and criminalize that same behavior on July 1st, 2026, solely on the basis of this new law."
Violations of the Virginia ban carry penalties of up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine, consequences these prosecutors have concluded they will not seek to impose. The NRA, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Gun Owners of America, and the Second Amendment Foundation have all filed separate suits in state and federal court challenging the law. Adam Kraut of the Second Amendment Foundation told the AP that "the firearms and magazines banned in this law aren't bizarre and unusual outliers, they're among the most commonly owned guns and magazines in the country."
The picture in Virginia, then, is one of a governor who signed a law that her own local prosecutors refuse to enforce, that major gun-rights organizations immediately challenged, and that the federal government now calls unconstitutional. The law's practical authority was in doubt before the ink was dry.
The California lawsuit targets a different set of restrictions but rests on the same constitutional foundation. The DOJ seeks to halt what it calls California's "Glock ban", a law restricting the sale of firearms with triggers the state classifies as convertible into a "machinegun-convertible pistol." That law went into effect on July 1.
The suit also challenges California's long-standing Handgun Roster, which limits which legal handguns can be purchased in the state. The DOJ characterized both the ban and the roster as unlawful. The DOJ published its news release on the California filing through the Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs.
Details on the specific court where the California suit was filed and the precise statutory provisions at issue were not included in the initial announcements. But Blanche's statement, singling out California by name, made clear the DOJ views the state's firearms regime as a particularly aggressive encroachment on constitutional rights.
The DOJ's lawsuits arrive at a moment when the Supreme Court is actively expanding the scope of Second Amendment protections. On Tuesday, one day before the DOJ announced its suits, the Court said it will consider in its next term whether the Second Amendment guarantees the right to possess AR-15-style rifles. The justices agreed to hear two cases: one involving a Cook County, Illinois, ordinance banning AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles, and another challenging a Connecticut law with similar provisions.
Those cases could set a national precedent that either reinforces or undercuts the DOJ's position in Virginia and California.
The Court has already signaled its direction. Last month, the justices struck down a Hawaii law that restricted guns on private property open to the public. In a separate ruling, the Court sided with a Texas man who challenged the federal ban barring certain drug users from possessing firearms. Both decisions expanded the practical reach of the Second Amendment.
Taken together, the DOJ filings and the Supreme Court's docket suggest the federal government and the judiciary are converging on a more muscular reading of the right to bear arms, one that puts state-level bans on commonly owned firearms on increasingly shaky legal ground.
What Virginia and California have in common is Democratic governance that chose to restrict firearms ownership even as federal constitutional doctrine moved in the opposite direction. Virginia's law made the commercial purchase of AR-15-style rifles a crime. California's regime effectively locked residents out of buying one of the most popular handgun brands in America. Both states treated the Second Amendment as an obstacle to be managed rather than a right to be respected.
The DOJ's lawsuits are a direct answer to that posture. Whether the courts ultimately agree will depend on how broadly the Supreme Court defines the constitutional floor. But the trajectory is clear: the states that bet on restriction are now defending those bets in federal court, against a Justice Department that has put them on notice, and before a Supreme Court that has already shown its hand.
When local prosecutors won't enforce a law, gun-rights groups line up to challenge it, and the federal government calls it unconstitutional, the law's defenders might consider the possibility that the problem isn't the Constitution, it's the law.
