by Judge William Glover of the Spotsylvania County Circuit Court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction this evening in Curtis v Katz. This was the case that challenged the new Virginia assault weapons ban and magazine restrictions on the grounds that it would prevent Virginia citizens from obtaining the weapons necessary to carry out their duties as part of the unorganized militia.
Judge Glover wrote that while the plaintiffs had established that they would suffer irreparable harm if the law goes into effect, he was not persuaded that the Virginia Constitution granted members of the unorganized militia the right to possess “military style weapons.” He went on to say that an injunction might cause harm to the Commonwealth as the duly-elected governor and legislature enacted the laws in the name of public safety. He went on to say, in not so many words, since the people had elected Spanberger and the anti-gun Democrats then it was in the public interest to let the laws go into operation.
There is a press conference tomorrow with former AG Ken Cuccinelli. I plan to attend by Zoom and will report on it later.
In the meantime, this ruling shows that elections have consequences. Every gun owner, every hunter, and every apathetic Virginian who couldn’t be bothered to vote in the 2025 elections bears partial responsibility for this outcome. Apathy has its own cruel rewards.
UPDATE: Soon after I posted this, I received Judge Glover’s full opinion which I am embedding below. The screenshot in the post was an abridged version. What I find interesting is just who submitted declarations in support of denying the injunction. You had Andrew McKevitt of Louisiana Tech whose book Gun Country we read in David Yamane’s book club as well as Prof. Robert Spitzer, a retired political scientist from SUNY Cortland, who makes a nice living in retirement as an “expert witness” promoting gun control.