A Marine veteran serving as the top prosecutor in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, has told his local sheriff that the state's new assault weapons ban is unconstitutional and will not be enforced in his jurisdiction, setting up a direct confrontation with Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger over one of the most sweeping gun-control measures in the commonwealth's history.
Commonwealth Attorney Ryan Mehaffey sent a letter to Spotsylvania Sheriff Roger Harris declaring that the ban "is unconstitutional and cannot be lawfully enforced," Fox News Digital reported. The letter amounts to a prosecutorial directive: even if the sheriff's deputies encounter potential violations of the new law, Mehaffey's office will not bring charges.
Spanberger signed the bill last week. It bans the future sale and manufacture of many semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns classified as "assault weapons," along with magazines holding more than 15 rounds. The law is set to take effect this July. Mehaffey is not the only local official pushing back. Smyth County Commonwealth's Attorney Phillip Blevins, an Air Force veteran, has also refused to enforce the ban on the same constitutional grounds.
Mehaffey grounded his refusal squarely in the Second Amendment and its Virginia counterpart. In an interview with Fox News Digital, he laid out a militia-based constitutional argument, one that tracks with the historical framework the U.S. Supreme Court has used in recent firearms decisions.
"Our founders were careful to make sure when they drafted our founding document, that the ultimate right of the people was preserved to defend themselves and to defend their community. So, the linchpin of the constitutional analysis is going to be does this instrument have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a regulated militia."
Mehaffey drew a practical line. A nuclear warhead, he said, falls outside the Second Amendment's protection. A basic infantry weapon does not.
"That sort of weapon is the core of what's protected by the Second Amendment. Not necessarily a nuclear warhead, but a rifle that you can take out and form either a fire team or a company to defend yourself and to defend your community."
He pointed to history and current military practice to illustrate the gap between the new law and what the Constitution protects. In the founding era, he noted, a militiaman carried a musket with 20 rounds. Today the standard-issue U.S. military infantry weapon is the M4A1 carbine equipped with a 30-round magazine. Virginia's new ban caps magazine capacity at 15 rounds, cutting below both benchmarks.
The law, Mehaffey argued, strikes at something deeper than a policy preference. As he told reporters, the ban is "striking at the core of the militia system that existed in Virginia."
Blevins, the Smyth County prosecutor, echoed Mehaffey's position but framed it in even starker terms. He told Fox News Digital that his stance has nothing to do with partisan loyalty.
"My position is not based on politics. It is based on constitutional fidelity. The Bill of Rights either means something, or it does not. As Commonwealth's Attorney, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Virginia. That oath is not situational, and it does not change based on politics, headlines, or pressure from either side of an issue."
Blevins acknowledged the courts will ultimately weigh in. But he made clear he will not wait for a judge's permission to honor his oath.
Spanberger, meanwhile, signed the bill despite warnings of legal challenges, calling it a "critical step toward protecting families, communities, and the law enforcement officers who serve them" and arguing that "firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets."
Mehaffey and Blevins are not fighting alone. The National Rifle Association, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation have all filed lawsuits challenging the ban. The legal offensive began almost immediately after Spanberger put pen to paper.
Those legal challenges from gun-rights groups and federal authorities represent a multi-front assault on the law's constitutionality, one that could keep the ban tied up in court well past its July effective date.
Violations of the ban are classified as Class 1 misdemeanors under Virginia law. But a misdemeanor charge only matters if a prosecutor is willing to file one. In Spotsylvania and Smyth Counties, that will not happen.
Spanberger herself conceded the bill was not exactly what she wanted. She noted that the General Assembly "chose not to adopt my amendment that specifically carves out certain firearms frequently used for hunting," but said she would "work with the patrons to clarify this language." That admission underscores the law's breadth, and the political awkwardness of a ban so wide that even the governor who signed it wanted to narrow it.
Critics of prosecutorial non-enforcement will frame Mehaffey's move as a local official substituting his judgment for the legislature's. But Mehaffey sees it differently. He told Fox News Digital the response from his community has been "overwhelmingly positive."
"I want nothing more than to fulfill my office with honor and to be a good servant to the people that elected me to represent them and to stick up for their rights. That's what I'm trying to do. I would expect any government official to remain faithful to the Constitution and to discharge their duties as servants of the people in the same way that I have."
Fox News Digital reached out to Spanberger for additional comment on Mehaffey's refusal. No response was included in the reporting.
The broader pattern is hard to miss. Across the country, state-level gun restrictions have drawn federal legal challenges, and local officials in Second Amendment, friendly jurisdictions have increasingly signaled they will not serve as the enforcement arm for laws they believe violate the Constitution.
Virginia's situation is particularly charged. Spanberger, a former CIA officer who won the governor's mansion as a Democrat, has been slipping in the polls amid criticisms of her progressive policy agenda. The growing resistance from local prosecutors adds another layer of political trouble, and raises a practical question Richmond has yet to answer: what good is a ban that prosecutors won't prosecute?
No court has yet ruled on the constitutionality of Virginia's assault weapons ban. Blevins acknowledged as much, saying "courts will continue to address these issues." The lawsuits from the NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Second Amendment Foundation will eventually force a judicial reckoning.
Until then, the law sits in a kind of limbo, signed by the governor, on the books in Richmond, and effectively dead on arrival in at least two Virginia counties. Mehaffey's letter to Sheriff Harris is a two-page document, but its message fits in a single sentence: the Constitution outranks the General Assembly.
That used to be an uncontroversial idea. In Virginia, apparently, it now takes a Marine to say it out loud.
