Key Takeaways
- Virginia gun shops sell rifles and magazines that were expected to be banned on July 1, due to ongoing legal challenges.
- A preliminary injunction has paused the enforcement of the assault firearm ban until December 31, 2026, while awaiting a Supreme Court decision.
- Gun shop staff face increased pressure to stay updated on the changing laws and regulations in Virginia.
- The legal situation remains unclear, with a statute still in place but enforcement on hold, prompting caution among gun owners and retailers.
- The author will continue to track ongoing related cases, including Crump v. Katz and McDonald v. Katz.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
RICHMOND, VA — Virginia gun shops are selling rifles and magazines that were supposed to be off the shelves on July 1, and the people behind the counter cannot tell you how long that will hold.
In May I covered lawsuits hitting Virginia’s new “assault firearm” ban within 24 hours of Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s signature, and in June I covered a judge blocking that ban statewide days before it was set to take effect. Here is what changed since: the Virginia attorney general’s office announced in late August that the legal challenge to the ban has been stayed while the U.S. Supreme Court considers broader challenges to similar restrictions, as reported by WSET, which also reported that retailers have moved the affected guns and magazines back onto the sales floor.
TJ Smith, manager at Point Blank Gun Shop, described what that looks like at the counter. “They’re back on the wall now. We have ARs and stuff back on the shelf, high-capacity handguns back in the case.” Smith said his staff has been putting in real hours off the clock just to keep straight what the law currently allows. “We have to do a lot of research, a lot of nighttime study and stuff like that.”
That is the practical cost of this mess, and it lands on FFLs first. A dealer who guesses wrong on a transfer is not writing a legal brief about it later, he is answering for it with his license.
According to Gun Owners of America’s June 25, 2026 announcement, the preliminary injunction it secured alongside Gun Owners Foundation and the Virginia Citizens Defense League in Crump v. Katz bars the Virginia State Police from enforcing the gun and magazine bans while the case continues, and pushes the enforcement date from July 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026. GOA said it expects the Commonwealth to appeal. A preliminary injunction is a court order that puts a law on pause while the lawsuit runs; it does not decide the underlying question.
The stay is the other half of the confusion. It means the case is parked rather than resolved, because the Supreme Court is about to answer the same constitutional question in other cases. So Virginia has a statute on the books, an order against enforcing it that GOA describes as running through the end of the year, a paused lawsuit, and a Supreme Court timeline nobody in the commonwealth controls.
More from USA Carry:
An injunction is not a repeal. The statutory language is still in the code, that December 31 date is not far off, and appeals move in both directions. If you own or sell in Virginia, the mindset here is to track the actual status of the law rather than assume it, because nobody wants to be the test case that finds out where the line moved.
I will continue tracking Crump v. Katz, McDonald v. Katz, and the Supreme Court cases that now set the clock for both of them.
