This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Responsibility By The Day
[past discussion here re: Reese]
Wilson v. Hanley was an October 2025 court decision in the state of Virginia. While the case itself originated as a challenge against the entirety of Virginia's 'universal background check' law, the decision tripped on a paradox in Virginia statute. The state's laws on bare possession allowed 18-20-year-olds to own and purchase firearms. However, a separately enacted statute prohibited almost all firearms transfers unless accompanied by a federal NICS background check, which would automatically reject any attempt by an 18-20-year-old to buy a handgun. The constitutional status of complete bans of handgun purchase or possession by under-21s is complicated, since the Fourth Circuit (later) found them constitutional, unlike the Fifth Circuit... but the constitutional status of allowing-but-not-allowing purchase while allowing theoretically-legal possession was more circumspect, and the court found against the law.
The judge, faced with a choice between leaving an unconstitutional statute in place, or trying to cut an age-based exception from the background check requirement that would raise equal protection concerns, instead enjoined the entire law. Even post-CASA, Virginia state law specifically authorized judges to permanently enjoin state laws that are constitutionally suspect with broad or complete scope. There's some procedural funny bits here, such as the not-yet-Attorney General (better known for his other work) trying to appeal or receive an extension to appeal, despite state law strictly limiting who can actually do that, but in the end no valid appeal was filed, the injunction is final, the collateral bar applies, mandate issued, so on.
There was a six-month period where the state was not mandating background checks on private firearms sales.
Emphasis on the "was."
On April 22nd 2026, the governor signed HB1525. This statute put a complete ban on purchase of handguns or 'assault weapons' by anyone under the age of 21. I will give some complaints on that aspect, since this feels a little equivalent to if social conservatives had responded to Lawrence v Texas by insisting that oral didn't count, but that's normal resistance as gun cases go, and one that will at least survive challenge up to the Fourth Circuit, and possibly its en banc. The law was filed as an emergency, and thus active from the date it was signed. It also had one other section:
A statute specifically requiring ("shall") violation of a standing court order is not a common thing.
The Virginia State Police did not immediately begin re-implementing background check requirements on April 23rd. Instead the Attorney General (better known for his other work) requested that the court dissolve the injunction. That is, to be fair, a perfectly legal request. He is, to be completely fair, very likely to win, if not immediately then on appeal.
To be clear, however, the court has not actually let him win yet. The court order still stands.
The Virginia State Police began re-implementing the background check requirements on May 27th. The court order still stands. It just means nothing.
There is no avenue for serious repercussion. The VCDL is going to file a motion for contempt of court, and may have already done so, but the avenues for civil contempt disappear with the injunction, and criminal contempt would be unprecedented and won't be happening. The same Governor has just signed a different bill after initially requesting amendment to except "certain firearms frequently used for hunting", not getting that amendment, and then deciding she's ban em anyway; there's no procedural protection or political blowback over firearms law that will ever matter to her. No one's going to be impeached, or jailed, and any civil trial would result in qualified immunity. A few sheriffs may disavow enforcement, which won't matter when the prosecution comes at the hands of state police and attorney general. Given the fallout of a conviction, few people are going to intentionally break the statute if enforcement has begun, and a good many who unintentionally violate it wouldn't have been prosecuted regardless for optics or case management reasons. At most, a handful of people prosecuted for purchased between today and the actual dissolution of the injunction might have charges dropped if they end up in front of a pro-gun judge ... except possession is still evidence of a crime, and whoops here's your free warrant hope you survive service.
This is further complicated by the public perception of universal background checks. Politicians, reporters, and gun control advocates see it as an overwhelmingly popular, in no small part down to polls that outright call it an 80:20 issue. In practice, actual referenda tend to be much tighter, even after massive pro-background check advertising spends and even in fairly anti-gun states. Once the question stops being a generic policy and has to confront a false-positive rate or range of exceptions or sympathetic defendants, a lot of the simple cell phone poll answers stop anchoring to 'yes' or 'no'. That's even more true under the current ATF doctrine, where the scope of the private sale exemption has shrunk dramatically.
But there's not enough trust to have serious discussion on that. Instead, there's just a lot of people sure that the silent majority will support them, and a court order in the way.
VCDL has filed the motion to rule to show cause for violation of the court order. The evidence is damning, complete, and undeniable. The VSP implementation can't even depend on the new statute, because it hasn't gone into effect yet and can't constitutionally go into effect until July 1st. Though the state's politicians and stenographers are going to pretend it does anyway, since they didn't amendment out the "emergency status" text of the statute that they didn't get the votes to support.
It also doesn't matter.
VCDL's pleading is open-ended enough that it could be asking that Jeffery Katz and Jay Jones face criminal contempt, and the judge could theoretically pass such a recommendation to the local prosecutors or appoint a new one -- and it's not going to happen, full stop, period, it's like shouting about 18 USC 242 or promoting citizen grand juries where even talking about it just marks you as a crank. There's just a
Optimistically, the best-case scenario for VCDL is a declaration that the injunction wasn't dissolved yet, and that Virginia owes them reasonable fees. Aka, the state gets to enforce a law illegally for a few days or weeks, the taxpayer pays a trivial fee, and VCDL only loses time but not money. Maybe the Virginia State Police even comply, rather than just thumbing their noses and pretending a minor tweak or disclaimer and doing the same thing anyway is enough? Not like it'll cost them anything if they don't. And it's just a plausible that the court (or appeals, because sanctions and contempt findings are appealable orders) finds that the injunction was going to be dissolved eventually, and that the value of the intervening weeks is zero.
More options
Context Copy link
I am not really against universal background checks, but the state enforcing a law which is technically blocked by a court order seems bad.
The fix would be to limit immunity for (executive) politicians, the police and even the courts. Basically, if the court finds that a reasonable person would have recognized that your action had no legal basis, then it is treated no different than if the mob had done it.
The analogy would be medical malpractice. Doctors generally are mostly exempt from laws forbidding you to cut people up and so forth. In general, there is (and should be) a broad road of defensible medical opinions, and as long they stick to that spectrum they should be fine and not get sued about 'why did you prescribe this antibiotic and not that' etc. This changes completely when they go beyond that road. A doctor who decides to murder their patient through poisonous medication will not be treated leniently because we generally allow doctors to put substances with harmful side effects into their patients' bodies. Instead, they will be treated more harshly, because in addition to breaking an important general civilizational rule, they also betrayed the trust which societies puts in physicians.
If a cop shoots a cosplayer dressed up as the Joker, we should book him for murder. If his defense is that they thought they were supposed to thwart evil-doers, then we will say "you are sadly mistaken about what the law is, and we do not believe a reasonable person would make this mistake, and we will punish you more harshly because you betrayed the trust we place in cops".
I am simply proposing extending this principle to more cases. If the DA orders the enforcement of laws which are plainly not in force (which is the story here, from what I get from you), then any arrest becomes a kidnapping charge for the whole chain of command (although there are some corner cases where we might apply a higher standard to the DA than to beat cops, just as we might apply a higher standard to physicians than nurses).
The ideal outcome would be that the police unions would go "we checked with our lawyers, and we advise our members to not follow orders to enforce that law because they would actually commit felonies if they did". (No, it does not suffice to go after the top guy, because then you end up in situations where the top guy kills himself in some bunkers and all his goons were blameless people merely following orders.)
This would also fix that FIRE case about a sheriff and judge randomly locking someone up for 1A speech. If we treat it the same as if they had abducted their victim in a van and kept him locked up in some basement for a month, the penalties we have on the book for that should deter re-offense.
Medical malpractice is the area of civil law dealing with incompetence. Outside the medical context, culpable incompetence leading to the death of an innocent is the crime of manslaughter. Medics are de facto but not de jure immune to criminal prosecution for manslaughter, even if they fall so far below the standard of care that they might as well just be cutting people up at random. We do prosecute medics for murder where malicious intent is proved (the famous cases in the UK are Harold Shipman and Lucy Letby, and the controversy around the Letby case demonstrates how hard it is to draw the line between sufficiently severe incompetence and malice). The primary control on culpable incompetence in medics is professional discipline, up to and including withdrawing licenses to practice. When a junior doctor and a nurse were prosecuted for incompetence under conditions of overwork and inadequate supervision, the UK medical profession had a collective freakout that required the Health Secretary to promise never again.
One of the problems with US policing is that there is no licensing regime for cops, and qualified immunity and sovereign immunity are sufficiently broad that civil law is not an effective remedy for culpable incompetence by police. There is a huge and highly technical body of police malpractice law, but it only protects guilty criminals who can get off (due to the exclusionary rule) if the police made a legal mistake while building the case - thus giving the worst of both worlds, with no remedy for genuinely innocent victims and all the costs of overlawyering. So criminal prosecution of rogue cops is the only stick the system has, and it is too big a stick for the required detail work. Defensive policing is just as harmful as defensive medicine, and people (quite properly) go ultra-defensive in the face of possible jail time. (See also the unintended consequences of abortion bans with doctors preferring to let pregnant women die rather than risk relying on the medical-necessity exception - this issue can be resolved with sufficiently clear published guidance and Texas has done so, but badly-governed red states haven't bothered.)
If this is the covert Godwin's law violation it looks like, then letting the vast majority of the goons off worked out pretty well in the end that time. The worst thing you can do is to prosecute the goons while letting the boss hide behind plausible deniability - that destroys non-criminal organisations.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Virginia's gone, man. For Virginians, all that's left to do is to vote, pray, and fund the grand ballroom for their newest litigation-legislation waltz. I took a peek at /r/VAguns not long ago and they're well into non-compliance bravado. I can't say I'd be any better in their situation, but the reality of becoming a criminal is less than romantic.
I've been meaning to ask, did you read friend of The Motte BJ Campbell's "After Action Report: Bridging the Divide"? He participated in an experimental parley with firearms, firearms policy, and gun violence experts, and they created a document which I read at the time but do not recall liking very much. From his summary:
It's not the first time he's written about this, but universal background checks are one of the "common sense" solutions that could work to target violent criminals.
That all sounds fine to me. Could work. Could. Unfortunately, this is will be too juicy of a weapon to go to waste, which means I can't trust the terms and conditions will change, and this makes it as good as any other fantasy solution. We could place the UBC servers in Próspera, Honduras, or carve out another semi-sovereign microstate that only ceremonially answers to the US government . A start-up is chartered there with a sole purpose of running each US state's UBC system uniformly and acceptably. From there, a council of a dozen AI agents could respond to and consider any changes future USG law or decree creates with a heavy weights towards saying, "No, 100 years has not passed."
Other than the whole rights being rights issue, the trust problem is tricky.
What better way to rebuild trust than limit one's own policy in one's own states to only the most effective bits? As a pragmatic framework for antigun states this could be net positive for gun rights. The major caveat is that it doesn't change the incentives that push politicians to chase the dragon on this issue, disband Brady, or have a chance in hell.
It's a read, although I'll admit I did some puckering when he linked to a Cam Edwards piece as if it were a hit piece, and then everything Edwards said was accurate. And while Siegel has some willingness to at least talk the talk, neither Siegel's efforts in the 97Percent group or his and Campbell's actions here did anything productive or any serious compromise rather than just getting half the cake now.
It's telling that Campbell's piece highlights constitutional carry as one of the biggest three options, and it's pointedly not in the final policy document. And that problem's built-in. Campbell himself notes that his opponents on the panel were the epitome of the saying about it being impossible to convinced someone against what their job requires.
Maybe. I'm still not convinced they're getting a real signal, rather than assuming the effectiveness of the tool.
I think it's a lot worse than that. It's not clear how any of this policy paper actually goes that way. We've seen what Purple and even Red State-implemented GVROs look like, and gunnies with a lot more function still weren't able to get serious due process there. The reductions to NICS, to marijuana prohibitions, or to nonviolent felonies all require changes to federal law that aren't happening unless the courts intervene (and maybe not even then, cfe Range) or the Trump admin starts rubberstamping the rights restoration process (and then only so long as the Trump admin is there). At the same time, the increases are free and readily available at the state level for gun control proponents. Red States can already (and often have already) pulled their NFA restrictions; Purple States won't. Optimistically the in-school gun safety stuff could be helpful, at least in theory? But we already know how that ends: the Biden administration abused the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to kill voluntary school gun leagues; the proposed policy lacks both a counter or even any consideration of the likely efforts by school administration to turn these into gun control brainwashing sessions.
More options
Context Copy link
Read my post down a ways for why "universal background checks" are not going to work even in the slightest. They won't be enforced against the only population that needs them.
If you define 'working' as reducing crime/violence, I agree it won't work. If you define 'working' as harming the outgroup/red tribe, I think this will work to a greater or lesser extent.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Those people deserve every law they get. They sounded happy to get their guns grabbed, lol. I wish California would just go ahead and snatch 'em all.
https://old.reddit.com/r/temporarygunowners/
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
My issue with background checks and sanity checks is that they really are easy to put things on the record, and hard to get them off, such that unless the law allows for a statute of limitations, something that you did or were treated for 25 or more years ago will still show up. That DUI at 18 might, unless the law limits the ability for a felony to remove your gun rights, mean 65 year old you cannot have a gun. Nor does the system have any way to tell the difference between a violent criminal act and a white collar crime. A guy who robs a store is probably a poor risk for legal carry, however I sincerely doubt that someone cooking the books is therefore going to go out and knock over a convenience store.
I agree, but I think there's a deeper issue here, which is that for the most part, the proponents of background checks aren't actually seeking to strike a reasonable balance between individual liberty and public safety. Their revealed goal is a complete ban on private ownership of firearms to be accomplished by incremental steps.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link