Lynchburgh, Virginia Circuit Court Judge F. Patrick Yeatts has sided with Gun Owners of America and Virginia Citizens Defense League and rejected the attempt by Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Attorney General Jay Jones to resume requiring background checks on the private transfers of firearms.
In a ruling delivered from the bench after a hearing on Thursday, Yeatts declared that his previously-issued injunction on Virginia’s universal background check scheme is still intact, despite Democrats’ efforts to do an end-run around the injunction.
🚨BREAKING🚨
A judge has reaffirmed his prior order in the GOA-VCDL lawsuit.
VA’s Universal Background Check law remains blocked by a statewide injunction.
Any official who tries to enforce the law despite the order does so at the risk of being held in contempt of court! https://t.co/jrJeZ0LfiY
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 3, 2026
As we discussed ahead of today’s hearing, Yeatts has been dealing with this issue for several years now, and has previously ruled that adults under the age of 21 have the right to possess a handgun. Under newly passed HB 1525, though, that right has been stripped from them in an attempt to impose a NICS check on all private transfers. Any NICS check on a handgun purchase is going to be flagged by the system given the federal prohibition on commercial handgun sales to under-21s, and the state of Virginia had previously tried to get around that by running checks on private sales of handguns to young adults through a system administered by the Virginia State Police.
Yeatts previously held that to be a violation of equal protection laws, so Democrats responded by making it a crime for an adult younger than 21 to purchase a handgun under any circumstances. GOA and VCDL argued that by doing so, the state is still running afoul of the judge’s previous rulings, and the judge appears to agree with that argument, as well as the plaintiffs’ contention that the “emergency” clause in the legislation that allowed HB 1525 to take effect immediately instead of on July 1 is null and void because it did not receive the 4/5ths approval by lawmakers as required under Virginia’s constitution.
Yeatts did deny GOA and VCDL’s request to hold the head of the Virginia State Police in contempt for resuming background checks on private transfers while the injunction was still in place, but according to VCDL President Philip Van Cleave, the judge warned the Attorney General’s office that further attempts to enforce background checks on private transfers would lead to a finding of contempt.
Attorney General Jay Jones has been quiet on today’s defeat, at least so far, but expect him to appeal the judge’s decision in short order. Once this case reaches the appellate court, I have no idea what will happen, but there are a number of issues at play, including whether or not Virginians under the age of 21 can be prohibited from purchasing firearms given their status as full, legal adults under the state constitution. The legal fight is far from over, but VCDL and GOA won a major battle in court today, while Spanberger and Jones are the big losers.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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