Abigail Spanberger ran for governor in Virginia as a dinosaur. I don’t mean an actual, extinct reptile, but as a moderate Democrat, a species as extinct as any dinosaur.  The instant she took office, she ran as a Democrat/Marxist/Islamist, an anti-American, anti-Constitution, anti-liberty/gun contemporary Democrat. Among her first initiatives was an “assault weapon” ban.

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There is, of course, no such thing as an “assault weapon,” which is best defined as any scary-looking gun--preferably black--Democrats can trick people into thinking is a machine gun or is particularly “high-powered,” deadly. Democrats use the term as propaganda and in unconstitutional legislation, but that does not magically conjure a class of guns that does not exist. There is a class of military rifles known as “assault rifles,” and they outwardly look like AR-15s, but differ dramatically because they’re capable of automatic and semiautomatic fire. AR-15s available to civilians are only semiautomatic. Both chamber the .223/5.56 mm NATO cartridge, which is only of intermediate power. It’s certainly not “high-powered.”

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Graphic: AR-15 variant, Author

The primary gun Spanberger has banned is the ubiquitous AR-15, the most popular and common rifle in America, and therein lies the constitutional issue. In their Heller, and Bruen decisions, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment acknowledges, but does not create, a fundamental, individual, unalienable right to keep and bear arms, and arms that are in common use are presumptively constitutional. That certainly describes AR-15s and similar rifles. Democrats hate that. They also hate Associate Justice Clarence Thomas—he’s not their kind of black guy--who in Bruen wrote that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.

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As expected, not only have private organizations sued Virginia, so has the DOJ Firearm Section of the Civil Rights Division:

As we reported the day Governor Abigail Spanberger signed the clearly unconstitutional ban on some of the most popular firearms and magazines in America, NRA, working with other organizations and two individuals, immediately filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The complaint argues that Virginia’s bans are unconstitutional because they prohibit many of the most commonly possessed arms in the nation. As the U.S. Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller, a ban on arms “in common use” violates the Second Amendment.

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NRA, working again with others, filed a separate suit that same day that challenges the new law in state court. That complaint argues that the bans violate the arms guarantee in Article 1, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution. It further contends that, because the Virginia Supreme Court has interpreted that provision as coextensive with the Second Amendment, it bars prohibitions on commonly-owned arms.

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There have been other legal challenges to these bans, and there may soon be one coming from the Trump administration’s Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, has been leading the charge to file federal challenges to a number of anti-gun laws that violate the protections enshrined in the Second Amendment.

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Among the things anti-liberty/gun cracktivists count on is it could take years for their plainly unconstitutional gun bans to be struck down. In the meantime, they get to spend millions of taxpayer dollars in a losing cause and get to harass, even imprison, law-abiding Americans those laws turn into instant felons. But all is not going well for Spanberger:

The Washington Times reported that prosecutors in five Virginia counties have indicated there will be no prosecutions under the new law in their jurisdictions. Commonwealth’s Attorneys in Powhatan, Pulaski, Scott, Smyth, and Spotsylvania Counties have all signaled there will be no prosecutions for otherwise law-abiding Virginians simply possessing the items Governor Spanberger is trying to eradicate. [skip]

So we’re currently at six counties, thus far, where Commonwealth’s Attorneys will do what they can to protect the Second Amendment against Spanberger’s unconstitutional bans.  In addition, Ammoland reports that “seven sheriffs from Amherst, Campbell, Carroll, Page, Floyd, Scott, and Washington counties have told their departments that the ban will not be enforced. Additionally, 58 localities have enacted protections to prevent the enforcement of the new gun laws.”

Spanberger has also joined, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the ranks of America’s most successful, unintentional gun salesmen. Virginia gun shops have been inundated with AR-15 customers buying guns and magazines before the ban goes into effect, and manufacturers are rushing to keep up with demand.

Unintended consequences are hard. It’s a shame that malicious politicians who pass laws they know are unconstitutional and waste millions of taxpayer dollars defending them can’t be prosecuted, but unfortunately, they write the laws.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.