{"id":117331,"date":"2026-06-16T19:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=117331"},"modified":"2026-06-16T19:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:05:13","slug":"117331","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=117331","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Virginia Gun Ban Lawsuit Argues Banned Arms Are Militia Arms<\/a><\/p>\n

While four Second Amendment-based cases challenging Virginia\u2019s semiautomatic gun and magazine ban are on hold pending a decision by a three-judge panel on whether they should be\u00a0consolidated<\/a>, another case, taking a different approach, is still \u201cscheduled to be argued next Wednesday, June 17th at 9am,\u201d Counsel for Plaintiffs\u00a0Kenneth T. Cuccinelli<\/a>\u00a0stated in a June 10 \u201cNon-client specific case update\u201d email.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Curtis v. Katz<\/em><\/a> complaint, filed in the Circuit Court of the County of Spotsylvania, asks for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief against SB 749 \/ HB 217 because \u00a0the \u201cban provisions of the Act\u00a0 violate the militia clause of Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Virginia.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the important difference from the other challenges comes in:<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaintiffs challenge these prohibitions solely under the militia clause of Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Virginia. They do not rest their case on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, nor on the individual right to keep and bear arms also embodied in Article I, Section 13.<\/p>\n

Their argument is simpler and more fundamental: the militia clause guarantees the existence of a \u201cwell regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms.\u201d That guarantee is self-executing.<\/p>\n

It necessarily presupposes that the body of the people may acquire and possess the arms with which they must be trained. The General Assembly cannot, consistent with that guarantee, prohibit the body of the people from acquiring the very weapons with which they must be prepared to serve as that militia.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Simply put, as noted in the Statement of Facts, \u201cThe weapons banned by the act are the arms of the citizen militia.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Along with the update email came a welcome bonus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commonwealth Attorney Defendant in our case, Ryan Mehaffey, filed a blockbuster brief in our case arguing that WE should get our preliminary injunction,\u201d Cuccinelli informed. \u201cIt\u2019s a good piece of work and a very pleasant surprise.\u00a0 I\u2019ve attached it for your reading pleasure (merged in the embed below).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While Mehaffey was named in the complaint because he is the Commonwealth\u2019s Attorney of Spotsylvania County, it should be noted he is one of the brave Virginia prosecutors who has gone on record saying\u00a0he will not enforce the ban<\/a>. (While his brief is, indeed, \u201ca good piece of work\u201d his contention that \u201ca sawed off shotgun is not protected because it does not have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia\u201d\u00a0is historically arguable<\/a>, as is what some of us might see as overreliance on limiting small arms to those that \u201care lawfully in common use today,\u201d which suggests bans on machineguns and limiting developing technologies to the standing army would be consistent with Founding intent instead of\u00a0potentially rendering the Second Amendment moot<\/a>. That said, the brunt of Mehaffey\u2019s brief is outstanding and educational.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI will let you all know if I hear anything about consolidation or our case schedule,\u201d Cuccinelli advised his email recipients. \u201cIf you don\u2019t hear from me, that means we\u2019re still on the schedule above.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virginia Gun Ban Lawsuit Argues Banned Arms Are Militia Arms While four Second Amendment-based cases challenging Virginia\u2019s semiautomatic gun and magazine ban are on hold pending a decision by a three-judge panel on whether they should be\u00a0consolidated, another case, taking a different approach, is still \u201cscheduled to be argued next Wednesday, June 17th at 9am,\u201d … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,50,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-goobermint","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117332,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117331\/revisions\/117332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}