Virginia lawmakers this year set out to bar out-of-state National Guard troops from entering the Commonwealth without the governor's consent, a move to push back on President Trump’s federalization of the Guard in other states. Lawmakers ultimately established a study group, tasked with recommending how the state should respond if it happens.
Lawmakers also debated the limits of an armed citizenry, banning assault firearms and high-capacity magazines, effective July 1. The ban has barely functioned since, tied up by four lawsuits and a statewide injunction that has left a popular public safety measure unenforceable.
Two different fights, one 250-year-old argument — how far the state's authority actually reaches over an armed citizenry, in a militia or a gun rack.
The argument has been debated and legislated in Virginia since the founding of the country. It has entangled the rights of citizens and the government, the fear of a national military imposing its will against state sovereignty, and the place organized, armed citizens — a militia — hold in society.
George Mason grew up when colonial defense was organized around the militia. Firearm ownership was common but not universal. In Virginia, able-bodied men were required to own a working gun, keep ammunition and turn out for muster. Anyone who failed to comply was subject to a fine.
But the colonial-era position was broader than just owning a gun. It was about how the militia was organized and trained, who commanded them, and under whose authority they could be called out.
In 1776, Mason drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Section 13 of that declaration said “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms” was the “proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state.” Standing armies in peacetime, it added, “should be avoided as dangerous to liberty.”
But Mason's clause protected only a collective interest, the state's ability to maintain an armed militia. It did not guarantee an individual's right to own a gun. That changed in 1971, when Virginia amended Section 13 to add, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That's the moment gun rights and militia rights became legally braided together in Virginia, and why untangling them in court today might be difficult.
The fight over whether the state or federal government controls a militia began nearly two centuries ago.
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, 55 delegates gathered to design a new government for the still-young United States. Most had served in the Continental Army, which saw roughly 230,000 men serve over the course of the war. State militias supplied an additional 145,000 men. At the convention, that mixed experience steered the debate over military power. Raise a national standing army or lean on strong state militias?
The initial draft of the Constitution gave Congress the power to “raise armies.” Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts moved to amend the clause to “raise and support armies.” Elbridge Gerry, also of Massachusetts, wanted assurances that a standing army would not be maintained in peacetime, and moved to cap it at 2,000 to 3,000 troops.
Gorham's motion passed without objection. Gerry's failed unanimously.
In short order, the delegates broadened Congress's power to raise a standing army while knocking down the one safeguard proposed against it.
The argument then moved to control of the state militias. Mason objected to a federal standing army but wanted the state militias to be prepared for the country’s defense. "Thirteen states will never concur in any one system, if the disciplining of the Militia be left in their hands," he said. Mason introduced a motion to give Congress “a power to regulate the militia.” The result was split responsibility. Congress got the power to organize, arm and discipline the militias, while the states kept the power to train them and appoint officers.
Mason refused to sign the Constitution in Philadelphia. His written objections warned the Constitution did not contain a declaration “against the danger of standing armies in time of peace.”
Mason made his strongest case at the 1788 Virginia ratification convention. On Richmond's Shockoe Hill, he told the delegates, “I abominate and detest the idea of a government, where there is a standing army.” Should the new national government wish to make the militia useless, he warned, it could simply “neglect them, and let them perish, in order to have a pretenses of establishing a standing army.” Left as written, he said, the Constitution “will take from the state legislatures what divine Providence has given to every individual — the means of self-defence.”
Gov. Edmund Randolph, also at the Virginia convention, said, “With respect to a standing army… there was not a member in the federal convention, who did not feel indignation at such an institution.” But he argued the national government still needed the power to call the militia forth “when the general defense requires it.”
James Madison, searching for compromise, made the case for balance in Federalist No. 46. He wrote that a federal army capped at around 25,000 to 30,000 men would face state militias numbering close to 500,000. “The existence of subordinate [state] governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition,” he wrote.
Mason’s “well-regulated militia” of 1776 underwent structural changes in the 20th century. By 1900, state militias were widely seen as unreliable, unevenly trained volunteer forces, and their performance in the Spanish-American War convinced Congress they needed fixing. The Militia Act of 1903 converted the militias into the modern National Guard, imposed federal training standards, and traded federal funding and equipment for federal oversight. The result continues to be debated and litigated.
The Guard is a state force commanded day to day by governors until a president invokes federal authority to activate it, at which point command shifts to Washington. That hybrid, neither fully state nor fully federal, put Guard troops in Illinois streets in 2025 when President Trump federalized the Illinois National Guard and called in the Texas National Guard as well, over the objections of Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Illinois sued.
In December 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a president cannot unilaterally federalize a state's National Guard for domestic law enforcement. The troops were removed.
The president exercises great control in Washington, D.C., a congressionally established federal district. Troops ordered to the D.C. streets in 2025 by Trump are expected to remain through the end of his term, with a monthly cost estimated at $55 million.
Mason wanted the states to be strong enough to resist a standing army. Madison bet that divided authority over the militia would hold against any government that tried to disarm the people. Virginia wrote both views into its constitution.
The argument that began on Shockoe Hill in 1788 remains unsettled.
Reach Philip Shucet at philip.shucet@philipshucet.com
Philip Shucet spent decades running large public institutions — the Virginia Department of Transportation and Hampton Roads Transit — during periods when they were under strain. He understands how they are built, how they break down, and what it takes to rebuild them. He is a graduate of Virginia Tech and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has begun doctoral research in law and policy.