Gun Owners of America secured a judgment Thursday in Wilson v. Hanley that blocks the enforcement of Virginia’s universal background check law.
Virginia’s universal background check law applied to handgun sales.
The case was heard in the court for the Twenty-Fourth Judicial Circuit of Virginia.
Judge F. Patrick Yeatts wrote the court order, noting myriad problems with Virginia’s universal background check law along the way.
For example, at one point he highlighted the universal background check special categorization of 18- to 20-year-olds, exempting them from background check passage while yet requiring background check passage for a handgun purchase.
Yeatts wrote, “Here, the Court finds no legitimate government interest in exempting individuals ages 18 to 20 from background checks while requiring them for those over the age of 20. Such a distinction would be as arbitrary as exempting any age range, such as 57 to 59, without justification.”
He left the door open for the legislature to rewrite the law in a way that “does not impose disparate treatment based on age,” but made clear that such a rewriting was beyond the scope of what the court was considering at this time.
The court barred enforcement of the universal background check law.
WATCH — AWR Hawkins: Universal Background Checks = Gun Registry
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of the NRA and Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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