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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.
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.
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