➡ The U.S. Department of Justice has warned the Governor of Virginia that the federal government may sue if she signs anti-gun bills into law, as they could violate the Second Amendment. This could be a significant move in favor of the Second Amendment. The letter also highlights that the Second Amendment protects the rights of citizens to own and use AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles for lawful purposes. The Department of Justice is prepared to defend the rights of law-abiding citizens to acquire firearms that are commonly owned by millions of Americans.
➡ The Department of Justice (DOJ) has warned Virginia about passing anti-gun laws, stating that they may face legal action if they do. The DOJ argues that these laws infringe on the constitutional rights of citizens, particularly the right to bear arms. They emphasize that firearms, including AR-15-style rifles, are constitutionally protected and should not be rendered inoperable by law. This move by the DOJ is seen as a significant step towards treating the Second Amendment as a civil right.

You know, guys and gals, they’ve told you nobody was coming for your guns. They even told you that bans were a conspiracy theory. They told you that AR-15s are not protected by the Constitution. And now, the Department of Justice itself has sent a formal letter to the Governor of Virginia warning that if she signs these anti-gun bills into law, the federal government is prepared to sue because those bills would violate the Second Amendment. And the timing on this is phenomenal. It’s not spin, it’s not rumor, it’s not even internet gossip. There was a letter signed, and I’ll put it here on the screen, yesterday from the U.S.

Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dillon, telling the anti-gun state of Virginia that it may be about to cross a constitutional line. And Patriots, if this administration actually follows through, this could be one of the biggest pro-Second Amendment moves we have seen from the federal government in a very long time. Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. My name is Jared, this is Guns and Gadgets. And on this channel, we cover the Second Amendment, the Constitution, Supreme Court decisions, and real-world fights against government overreach. If you’re new here, and you believe that your rights are not up for negotiation, subscribe to the channel so that you can stay in the know and then turn on notifications, because there’s more happening than you’re aware of, especially in the courts.

Because today, we are looking at a letter dated yesterday, April 10, 2026, from the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, again signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dillon, and sent directly to Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger. The subject line says it all, protecting Second Amendment rights. Now, I want you to just understand how unusual this is. Gun owners have been used, and were used to being lied to, sidelined, smeared, and treated like where the one part of the Bill of Rights politicians can violate without consequence. But this letter kind of flips that script. The letter says the Civil Rights Division may commence litigation if Virginia enacts certain bills that unconstitutionally infringe on the right to keep in bare arms.

So today, I want to break down exactly what this letter says, why the language matters, and what it means for Virginia, and why anti-gun lawmakers across the country should be very nervous if this is the beginning of a broader federal posture. And it comes a good timing, because yesterday, the governor signed some stuff in the law. It’s not a suggestion from the DOJ, it’s a warning. And the first paragraph punches hard. The Department of Justice says that this letter provides formal notice that the Civil Rights Division will commence litigation if Virginia enacts certain bills that unconstitutionally limit law-abiding Americans’ individual rights to keep in bare arms.

Now, it says, it doesn’t say, rather, that we may review, it doesn’t say that we have concerns, it doesn’t say we are monitoring the situation. It says this serves as formal notice that litigation will begin if these unconstitutional bills are enacted. It’s a warning shot. Then, the letter identifies SB 749 specifically and says that, as written, it would require Virginia law enforcement agencies to engage in unconstitutional restrictions on the making, buying, and selling of AR-15s and many other semi-automatic firearms in common use. There that is again, common use. This is the phrase anti-gun politicians hate because it wrecks their propaganda.

They’ve spent years trying to portray the AR-15 as some bizarre outlier weapon outside the American mainstream. But the legal problem for them is that the AR-15 is one of the most commonly owned rifles in the country and in parts of the world. It’s ordinary, very ordinary, it’s widespread. It’s owned by millions and millions of law-abiding Americans, and under the constitutional framework, that matters. So right out of the gate, this letter destroys the emotional talking points and gets back to constitutional reality. Now, this next part may be the biggest deal in the entire letter. Harvey Dillon writes that President Trump issued Executive Order 14206 back on February 7, 2025, making clear that his administration will take affirmative steps to ensure the Second Amendment rights must not be infringed.

Then she says that immediately after she was sworn in to oversee the Civil Rights Division, she launched the department’s first-ever investigation into practices alleged to violate law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Then comes the line that should make every anti-gun bureaucrat choke on their coffee. Hopefully they drink blackout coffee too. The Civil Rights Division has formally created a Second Amendment section. And it’s big because for decades, the federal government has acted like the Second Amendment was the red-headed stepchild of the Bill of Rights. Free speech? Sacred. Voting rights? Sacred. Religious liberty? Sacred. Due process? Sacred. But the right to keep and bear arms? Suddenly, that was negotiable.

Suddenly, that was flexible. Suddenly, that was subject to whatever public safety slogan politicians could workshop that week. But this letter signals a change in posture. It signals that the federal government may now be willing to recognize what gun owners have been saying forever, and when the government targets the Second Amendment, it is targeting a civil right. And if that principle takes hold, it changes everything. Because then, states are no longer just passing gun policy, they are violating civil rights. And that’s a much different frame, and I think it’s the correct one. Now, let’s get to the section anti-gun politicians are going to absolutely hate in this letter.

Dylan writes that the Second Amendment protects the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and use AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles for lawful purposes. That sentence is devastating to the gun control lobby. Because the entire modern gun control playbook depends on making people emotionally recoil from the AR-15 while ignoring the actual constitutional test. They want you to think the scarier the rifle looks, the fewer rights you have. But rights do not rise and fall based on cosmetic fear campaigns. And the letter then points to the Supreme Court’s 2025 opinion in Smith & Wesson Brands v. Mexico, saying that the court made clear that AR-15s are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary customers.

And it’s not some fringe observation there, that is the Supreme Court describing reality, widely legal, bought by ordinary customers. And it’s a case that most people don’t hear a lot, but it has some good things for the Second Amendment in it. Not black market contraband, not exotic battlefield weapons in civilian disguise, ordinary consumers. Then the letter also cites Garland v. Cargill, noting even their AR-15s were described as commonly available semi-automatic rifles in that case. So the Department of Justice is stacking the record with the most important point possible, that these are constitutionally protected arms that millions upon millions of Americans lawfully possess.

And then the letter says Virginia appears poised to make it a crime to purchase and sell those arms, and that the Civil Rights Division will seek to enjoin any attempt to infringe the rights of law-abiding Virginians to acquire firearms possessed by literally tens of millions of Americans. And that phrase should be repeated over and over until the lie dies. Tens of millions of Americans own these. So when politicians say that they are only targeting a narrow category, understand what it really means. They are targeting one of the most common rifles in the country, owned by ordinary people for lawful purposes.

And the DOJ is now saying out loud that this is unconstitutional. Now the letter also torches laws that make self-defense impossible. The second page gets into another tactic that anti-gun lawmakers love, making it so difficult to actually use a firearm for self-defense that the right becomes meaningless. Jaime Dillon says that laws requiring constitutionally protected firearms to be maintained in an unoperable state are unconstitutional. Then she cites District of Columbia v. Heller, where the Supreme Court held that DC’s requirement that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times violates the Second Amendment. This is so important because anti-gun politicians are masters at pretending to respect a right while gutting it in practice.

They’re phenomenal at it. We just want them unloaded, disassembled, locked, disabled, stored away in a way that makes it useless when you actually need it. That’s not respect for a right, guys. That’s sabotage. Because the right to armed self-defense means the firearm must be capable of being used for self-defense immediately when needed. And a right delayed at the moment of crisis is a right denied. You do not call 911 and ask an intruder to wait while you unlock multiple devices, reassemble your firearm, retrieve ammunition from another room, and hope the state-approved storage regiment that you had to follow gives you enough time not to die.

That’s insanity, and Heller has already addressed it. So the fact that this letter explicitly warns Virginia over that type of restriction tells me the DOJ is not just looking at flashy AR ban headlines, it’s also looking at the quieter ways anti-gun states undermine the core right recognized in Heller. Virginia did not send one bad bill. It sent a pile of them. The letter says that the Virginia General Assembly has forwarded over 20 bills that restrict Second Amendment rights. Over 20. And guys in Virginia and gals who are watching this, they’re like, yeah, Jared, I know, and I’ve done a video on most of them.

And that tells you all you need to know. Like, this is not about one misunderstood proposal. This is not about one legislator getting carried away. It’s about the full spectrum of anti-gun push. And that’s how these states operate. They do not come after one slice of a right and then stop there. They go after acquisition, ownership, transfers, carry, storage, features, magazines, access, use, training, transportation, piece by piece, burden by burden, until the right exists on paper and nowhere else. And the really infuriating part is that they still have the nerve to say nobody is coming for your guns.

Really? Then why do these bills target the purchase and sale of AR-15s? Why do they go after commonly owned semi-automatic firearms? Why do they push requirements that mirror unconstitutional laws already struck down by the Supreme Court? Why are over 20 bills on the governor’s desk restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens? This is exactly why that slogan has always been a lie. Because when Democrats say nobody’s coming for your guns, what they usually mean is they hope they can take them in stages slow enough that you won’t notice it until a trap is already closed.

Because why? Because you need your guns. Now let’s talk about something that legal nerds and Second Amendment advocates should both appreciate. The letter acknowledges there is contrary Fourth Circuit precedent in Bianchi v. Brown, and it notes the denial of certiorari in Snope v. Brown. But then it says flat out that the case was wrongly decided. That’s bold for DOJ. Because the DOJ is openly recognizing there is adverse precedent in that circuit, but it is not surrendering to it. It is not hiding behind it. It is saying that the ruling is wrong and the department’s position is that these protections still matter.

That is how constitutional fights are supposed to happen. Bad rulings do not become sacred just because they exist. If a court gets the Constitution wrong, it should be challenged again and again and again if necessary, especially when fundamental rights are on the line. Gun owners have watched too many officials use bad precedent as an excuse to do absolutely nothing. And this letter does the opposite. It says yes, we know the precedent is there, and yes, we think it’s wrong. That matters a huge amount. Let’s take a quick break right now to thank the sponsor. Today’s video is sponsored by Blackout Coffee, an American-owned company that supports the Constitution and American freedom.

If you want some seriously bold coffee, great tasting, not like the crap I had here at this hotel today in Nashville, but great tasting seriously bold coffee. Especially while you’re diving into the Second Amendment news with me, head on over to blackoutcoffee.com slash gng and use code GNG10 to save 10% on your order. Guys, this is bigger than Virginia. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is only about one state because Virginia may be the immediate target of the letter, but the real audience is every anti-gun governor, every state attorney general, every legislature, every Bloomberg-backed activist, and every bureaucrat who thinks the Second Amendment can be treated like a privilege.

This is a national message, which is why I’m bringing it to you today. If you try to ban arms in common use, you may get sued. If you try to make constitutionally protected firearms unusable for self-defense, you may get sued. If you try to push a package of anti-gun bills that directly collide with the Supreme Court doctrine, you may get sued. Ms. Dylan, I know you watch the channel. I humbly ask you to send one of these letters to every one of the states that are already suffering under these types of infringements. And I hope you do that because anti-gun states have been operating under a disgusting little business model for years.

Pass the law first, violate rights immediately, force citizens to spend years and years and fortunes to fight back, and then pretend the constitutional harm is just part of the process. It should have never been tolerated, and it should never be tolerated. Constitutional rights are not supposed to be suspended until litigation catches up. So here’s the bottom line. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division just sent a formal warning to Virginia saying that if certain anti-gun bills are enacted, the federal government is prepared to go to court and sue them. The letter specifically says that AR-15-style rifles are constitutionally protected arms used lawfully by ordinary Americans.

It says laws requiring protected firearms be kept inoperable are unconstitutional under Heller. It says Virginia has sent more than 20 anti-Second Amendment bills to the governor, and it says the department is ready to act. I don’t know about you, but I am very open to this new, at least, attempt. I hope they follow through with this. I guess we’ll see now if this is just strong language, or the beginning of some real enforcement, finally. But either way, this is one of the clearest signs yet that the Second Amendment may finally be getting treated like an actual civil right by the federal government.

And it’s about freakin’ time. It’s important to know also that governors do not have federal criminal immunity. And the DOJ could bring charges under the Federal Deprivation of Rights Code, and maybe some other codes as well, but I doubt Virginia courts would side with the DOJ if that were to happen, because it’s never really happened before. That would take some big stones, make some big headlines for the administration to go after governors like that, especially when they’re not even arresting people connected to the PDF ring. So would they do this? I don’t know, but it would be great.

I mean, if you think anti-gun politicians should be held accountable when they trample on constitutional rights, then hit the like button and subscribe to the channel here and share this video everywhere. And let me know in the comments, do you think Virginia backs down here with the threat from the Department of Justice, or does this become the next major Second Amendment court fight? Because the governor of Virginia just signed a couple bills yesterday, and we’ll see what happens. We haven’t seen the assault weapon ban bill yet, but it’s coming. As always, stay safe, stay vigilant, and I’ll see you on the next one.

Have a great day. Take care. Thank you. [tr:trw].

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