Virginia AG: Your State Constitution Doesn't Protect Your Guns

In Crump v. Katz — the GOA/VCDL lawsuit challenging SB749's ban on semi-automatic rifles and magazines over 15 rounds — the Commonwealth's defense team filed a brief dropping a bombshell argument: Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution is a "collective, militia-tethered right," not an individual one.

Read that again. Virginia is in a federal courtroom arguing that its own constitution's right-to-arms clause does not belong to you.

The entire argument turns on one word: "therefore." Virginia's brief claims that because the right-to-bear-arms language is linked to the militia clause by "therefore," the right is merely a byproduct of militia service — not a freestanding guarantee to individual citizens. That's not a legal technicality. That's a direct assault on the foundational premise that Virginians have constitutional rights as individuals.

The state goes further. It argues courts should ignore Heller and Bruen entirely when interpreting Section 13 — because federal Second Amendment doctrine supposedly doesn't control state constitutional interpretation. Virginia wants a separate, weaker track of rights where state judges can gut protections the Supreme Court already confirmed.

Virginia also points to 1971 legislative history, claiming the sponsors of the right-to-arms clause said it created "no additional rights" and wouldn't interfere with gun control. Translation: the people who wrote Virginia's right-to-arms language apparently didn't intend it to protect your arms.

This is the endgame play gun-control lawyers have been building toward for years. If Virginia wins this argument — even partially — it hands every anti-gun state a blueprint: pass a ban, declare your state constitution a militia clause rather than a rights clause, and watch Heller become irrelevant inside your borders.

Plaintiffs John Crump, GOA, GOF, VCDL, and the Virginia Citizens Defense Foundation are fighting this in real time and seeking a preliminary injunction to block SB749 while the case proceeds.

This is the most dangerous constitutional argument Virginia gun owners have faced in a generation — and it's already live in a courtroom.

**What you can do right now:** Support GOA and VCDL financially. They are the only organizations standing between you and a legal theory that strips the Virginia Constitution of any meaning for gun owners. Watch Crump v. Katz — when this ruling drops, it will set precedent in every state with similar constitutional language.