Virginia's AR Ban Is 6 Days Out — Wednesday Is the Last Exit

Governor Abigail Spanberger signed SB 749 into law, and it drops July 1. That means the future sale, purchase, transfer, or importation of any semi-automatic rifle, pistol, or shotgun Virginia labels an "assault firearm" is banned — plus any magazine over 15 rounds. SB 727 layers on new restrictions for where those now-forbidden guns can even be carried.

Five lawsuits. Six days. Two courtrooms that actually matter.

**Crump v. Katz** and **Santolla v. Katz** both have preliminary-injunction hearings on the docket for Wednesday, June 25 — the last realistic moment to stop this before it becomes law you can be arrested under. Crump is backed by Gun Owners of America and the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Santolla is the NRA/VSSA state-court challenge, filed in Washington County Circuit Court, with business plaintiffs — Middletown Firearms, Middletown Training, Virginia Pride Ltd. — who argue the ban doesn't just restrict rights, it destroys their companies in five days.

The federal case, **McDonald v. Katz**, was filed by the NRA, FPC, and Second Amendment Foundation in the Eastern District of Virginia. It runs the straight Heller/Bruen argument: commonly owned semiautomatic arms cannot be banned, full stop. The plaintiffs take the Fourth Circuit's hostile Bianchi and Kolbe precedents head-on — and argue those decisions were wrong and need to be overruled by a court with the spine to do it.

Here's the gut punch: a third court has **already denied emergency relief** in one of the five cases. The fight isn't over — but the map just got harder.

A separate three-judge panel is also weighing whether Virginia's four state-court challenges get transferred or consolidated. That procedural chess match could determine how fast any relief actually reaches gun owners on the ground.

**The claims span everything:** the federal Second Amendment, Virginia's own Article I Section 13 right to keep and bear arms, the state militia clause, the constitutional right to hunt, and vagueness challenges to the criminal penalties baked into the ban.

Spanberger and Virginia Democrats are banking on the Fourth Circuit's anti-gun record to give them cover. The plaintiffs are betting that five simultaneous cases, business owners facing direct economic annihilation, and the post-Bruen legal landscape give at least one judge enough reason to pump the brakes before midnight June 30.

**Wednesday is the day.** If Crump and Santolla don't walk out of court with injunctions, Virginia gun owners wake up July 1 in a state where the most common rifles and magazines in America are illegal to buy, sell, or transfer — and the legal fight grinds into a years-long appellate crawl while the ban is in full effect.

Watch both courtrooms. Forward this to every Virginia gun owner you know. **The clock isn't ticking anymore — it's almost out.**