GOA, VCDL Warn Virginia Officials Against Enforcing Enjoined Universal Background Check Law as Court Considers State’s Effort to Dissolve Injunction

June 3, 2026
1:10 pm

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Virginia’s latest attempt to revive its enjoined universal background-check statute is running into the same constitutional wall that stopped it the first time, and the Gun Owners of America and Virginia Citizens Defense League are making sure state officials know the injunction is still very much alive. By filing pointed warnings with the attorney general and state police, the groups are underscoring a simple reality: courts do not issue injunctions as polite suggestions, and any bureaucrat who treats this one as optional is inviting both personal liability and another stinging rebuke from the bench. The state’s motion to dissolve the order looks less like a good-faith legal argument and more like an effort to manufacture a fait accompli before the 2025 legislative session, betting that a friendly judge or two might blink. What makes the move especially telling is the timing. With the General Assembly now narrowly controlled by Republicans after the 2023 elections, Democrats appear desperate to lock in as much of their prior agenda as possible before voters can finish the job at the ballot box. Universal background checks were always the gateway drug to registration and confiscation schemes; the fact that the state is willing to risk contempt findings rather than simply wait for a final ruling shows how little regard the gun-control lobby has for either due process or the Second Amendment. For Virginians who remember the 2020 “lobby day” protests and the subsequent flood of sanctuary resolutions from counties across the commonwealth, this episode is a reminder that the fight is never truly over—only paused until the next election or the next lawsuit. The larger implication for the national 2A community is that injunctions are only as strong as the willingness of grassroots groups to police them. GOA and VCDL’s preemptive letters serve as both a legal tripwire and a public signal that any attempt to stand up a de-facto permitting regime without legislative or judicial cover will be met with immediate litigation and FOIA-driven exposure. In an era when some states treat court orders as speed bumps, that kind of vigilance is the difference between paper rights and actual rights.

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What makes the move especially telling is the timing. With the General Assembly now narrowly controlled by Republicans after the 2023 elections, Democrats appear desperate to lock in as much of their prior agenda as possible before voters can finish the job at the ballot box. Universal background checks were always the gateway drug to registration and confiscation schemes; the fact that the state is willing to risk contempt findings rather than simply wait for a final ruling shows how little regard the gun-control lobby has for either due process or the Second Amendment. For Virginians who remember the 2020 “lobby day” protests and the subsequent flood of sanctuary resolutions from counties across the commonwealth, this episode is a reminder that the fight is never truly over—only paused until the next election or the next lawsuit.

The larger implication for the national 2A community is that injunctions are only as strong as the willingness of grassroots groups to police them. GOA and VCDL’s preemptive letters serve as both a legal tripwire and a public signal that any attempt to stand up a de-facto permitting regime without legislative or judicial cover will be met with immediate litigation and FOIA-driven exposure. In an era when some states treat court orders as speed bumps, that kind of vigilance is the difference between paper rights and actual rights.

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