According to Firearm Chronicles
A circuit court judge in Lynchburg, Virginia has overturned a portion of Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order that declared indoor gun ranges “places of amusement” that are non-essential and must shut down during his state of emergency. Judge F. Patrick Yeatts declared in an order on Monday that Northam’s actions are likely to have exceeded his constitutional authority, and declared that the portion of the governor’s executive order on essential businesses that deals with indoor ranges not be enforced while the litigation continues.
Yeatts noted in his decision that the Virginia state constitution declares that “the body of the people, trained to arms is the proper, natural safe defense of a free state.” Since that is the case, clearly the right to bear arms includes the right to train with them. Since gun ranges provide a place where that training can take place, they are protected under the right to keep and bear arms.
The judge agreed with Gov. Northam that he has great deference in times of emergency, but stated that a Virginia law passed in 2012 (and supported by Northam, who was a state senator at the time) prohibits the governor from taking any action, even in a state of emergency, that interferes with the right to keep and bear arms.