Virginia’s Lynchburg circuit court on June 3 kept an injunction that prevents the Virginia State Police from enforcing the state’s universal background check law for private firearms sales, leaving the statute effectively unenforceable after a short-lived attempt to restart checks and handing gun-rights groups another courtroom victory.
A judge in Lynchburg rejected Attorney General Jay Jones’ attempt to lift the injunction that bars the Virginia State Police from applying Va. Code § 18.2-308.2:5 to private gun transfers. The injunction stems from a lawsuit brought by gun-rights groups and individuals challenging the statute under Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution. That ruling left the law unenforceable in practice and reinforced the earlier finding that the statute conflicts with Virginia’s own constitutional text.
The litigation in question is captioned Raul Wilson, Wyatt Lowman, Virginia Citizens Defense League, Gun Owners of America, Inc., and Gun Owners Foundation v. Colonel Jeffrey S. Katz, case number CL25000582-01, and its origins go back to the fall of 2025. The Virginia Citizens Defense League and Gun Owners of America were the plaintiffs who secured the original injunction. The court’s reasoning relied on the state constitution’s guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms rather than on the federal Second Amendment.
After Democrats took the legislature in January, they pushed new legislation aimed at restarting enforcement of the background check mandate, creating a direct clash with the existing court order. On May 27 the Virginia State Police announced it would begin conducting background checks on private sales, a move described at the time as a direct challenge to the existing court injunction. That enforcement effort lasted a single week before the Lynchburg court stepped back in and shut it down.
“After a hearing in Lynchburg Circuit Court on June 3, 2026, and in compliance with the injunction and final order entered by the Circuit Court for the City of Lynchburg in Raul Wilson, Wyatt Lowman, Virginia Citizens Defense League, Gun Owners of America, Inc, and Gun Owners Foundation v. Colonel Jeffrey S. Katz, CL25000582-01, the Virginia Department of State Police (VSP) is enjoined and prohibited from administering, enforcing, or otherwise imposing upon any person the requirements of Va. Code § 18.2-308.2:5.”
That agency statement left no room for partial compliance: the VSP said it is prohibited from administering, enforcing, or imposing the statute on anyone. The language is plain and comprehensive, and it reflects a straightforward judicial rebuke of the attempt to resume enforcement. For gun owners and the groups that brought suit, the ruling was a clear vindication of the injunction they first won last year.
The sequence of events reads like a familiar pattern: a court finds a law unconstitutional under the state constitution, legislators pass new statutes to revive the policy anyway, the executive branch attempts to implement the new law, and the judiciary reasserts the constitutional limit. Attorney General Jones filed to dissolve the injunction but the judge declined, leaving the constitutional finding intact. Whatever legal theory Jones advanced failed to overcome the court’s prior interpretation of Article I, Section 13.
Jones has already drawn criticism for his approach to other legal fights, and his office’s push here reinforced a narrative that elected officials sometimes mistake legislative power for constitutional amendment. Courts are not obliged to bless legislative tweaks that run headlong into explicit constitutional provisions, and Virginia judges have repeatedly applied that principle in recent disputes. The state Supreme Court and federal courts have also been reluctant to bless partisan fixes when the state constitution points the other way.
For now, private transfers of firearms in Virginia do not trigger a state-administered background check thanks to the injunction and final court order. The plaintiffs who challenged the statute have blocked it twice, and the state lacks a simple legislative detour to change that outcome. Altering the constitutional rule would demand a much higher bar than a legislative majority, and the practical effect is to put the question beyond ordinary statute-making for the time being.
Court filings and some procedural details remain under seal or unreported, including the name of the Lynchburg judge who issued the June 3 ruling and the full text of the attorney general’s motion to dissolve the injunction. Those records may become public as the case file develops, but the public-facing documents already released show a state agency complying in clear terms with the court’s prohibition. The VSP did not announce plans to ignore or work around the order.
The dispute also highlights a broader political dynamic in Virginia: when lawmakers treat the courts as a speed bump rather than a coequal branch, they risk predictable defeats. Passing a law the courts have already struck down is not a clever workaround; it is an invitation for another loss. The Lynchburg decision reinforces the simple point that constitutional text controls over transient political majorities.
The injunction remains active, the law remains unenforceable as written, and the practical effect is to preserve the scope of individual firearm rights under Virginia’s constitution as the court interpreted them. Moving forward, anyone seeking to change that balance will face the higher hurdle of constitutional amendment rather than ordinary statute, and the legal fight over background checks in Virginia is likely to continue in one form or another.
