Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Pro-Second Amendment Group Warns US Territory In Paradise It Faces Legal Perdition Over Proposed Gun Laws

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A top official with the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) warned lawmakers in the Virgin Islands Friday that gun control bills being debated there could be thrown out in court.

SAF sent Democratic Territorial Senate President Milton Potter a letter Wednesday that warned pending court cases could declare proposed provisions, including bans on standard capacity magazines and modern semiautomatic firearms, unconstitutional on Second Amendment grounds. SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Konstadinos Moros echoed the warnings in testimony Friday.

“I am happy to discuss why this bill is wrong on substance, but I know they won’t agree anyway, so I suggest a more practical point: they should slow their roll until they get pending SCOTUS and 3rd Circuit rulings which will cover a lot of what the bill would do,” Moros posted.

“Why risk an expanded DOJ lawsuit and the legal fees accompanying that, instead of just waiting a little bit to see what the courts say in controlling cases?” Moros continued.

My testimony, BTW, was simple like my letter-

I am happy to discuss why this bill is wrong on substance, but I know they won’t agree anyway, so I suggest a more practical point: they should slow their roll until they get pending SCOTUS and 3rd Circuit rulings which will cover a…

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) June 12, 2026

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced litigation against the Virgin Islands Police Department in December 2025, accusing the agency of imposing “unreasonable conditions” and using a “good cause” standard the Supreme Court invalidated in the June 2022 Bruen decision.

“The territory’s firearms licensing laws and practices are inconsistent with the Second Amendment,” U.S. Attorney Adam Sleeper for the District of the U.S. Virgin Islands said in the release. “This lawsuit seeks to uphold the rights of law-abiding citizens to bear arms in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Pro-Second Amendment groups, including SAF, filed suit to block similar legislation after Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed SB 749, which banned so-called “assault weapons.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas observed in a footnote in his dissent in Carhart v. Stenberg that the term “assault weapons” is a politically-motivated euphemism used to mischaracterize semi-automatic firearms with features that give them a superficial similarity to firearms capable of fully-automatic operation to gain support for legislation restricting or banning them.

In an article published May 13, The New York Times noted that both the AR-15 rifle (which bears a resemblance to the M16 and M4 select-fire weapons used by the U.S. military) and rifles with cosmetic features or accessories that make them look like fully-automatic AK-47s are popular firearms owned by millions of civilians. Under the Supreme Court’s rulings in Heller and Bruen, firearms in common use for lawful purposes fall under the Second Amendment’s protection.