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Virginia Restores Concealed Carry Gun Permit Reciprocity With 25 States

By Robert Jonathan
Published on: 04:39 PST, Jan 30, 2016

The state of Virginia will reinstate conceal carry handgun permit reciprocity with 25 other states that was due to end in just a few days.

In late December, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, unilaterally decided that the state would no longer recognized out-of-state gun permits as of February 1. The change implemented without going through the Virginia legislature would have meant that approximately six million individuals would have lost the right to legally carry a concealed weapon with the commonwealth of Virginia.

The states affected by the attorney general’s order were Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

In addition, Virginia conceal carry permits would have no longer been valid in Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming on the basis of no-longer-mutual reciprocity.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, the action lit a fire among gun rights supporters who accused gun control-supporting Herring of using his position to eat away at the Second Amendment, the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

In response, Republicans who control both houses of the Virginia legislature at one point considered pulling the funding for Gov. Terry McAullife’s armed state police bodyguards.

Gun control advocate McAuliffe — a Democrat and former Clinton fundraiser who was narrowly elected in 2013 over former AG Ken Cuccinelli — and Republican lawmakers have now reached a compromise that will short-circuit the action by the attorney general and result in the state continuing to recognize external gun permits.

In addition to reversing Herring’s decision banning reciprocity, “The compromise legislation would allow the state to take guns away from individuals under a two-year protective order for domestic violence, and it would require police to perform background checks at gun shows,” Talking Points Memo explained about the bill to be signed into law by McAuliffe once it clears both legislative chambers.

The full details of the “historic” gun agreement can be reviewed on the governor’s website.

Said a McAuliffe spokesman, “This is a bipartisan deal that will make Virginians safer. It also demonstrates that Democrats and Republicans can work together on key issues like keeping guns out of dangerous hands.”

“Bipartisanship requires give and take by both sides,” added House Speaker William Howell. “This agreement restores reciprocity for law-abiding Virginians while sending a clear signal about domestic violence. There’s a lot to like here.”

“Give and take is essential to every negotiation, but the balance of this deal changes Virginia law permanently in ways that will keep guns away from people who would use them for harm,” Gov. McAuliffe declared about the agreement which the NRA supported.

“McAuliffe had little choice. The state legislature had veto-proof majorities in both chambers ready to pass a ‘total recognition’ law that would have cut the ground out from underneath McAuliffe and Herring, and forced an expansion of reciprocity,” HotAir.com declared about what it called McAullife’s retreat in exchange for minor concessions from gun rights backers.

Gun control advocates blasted McAuliffe for striking the deal, which emerged after weeks of difficult negotiations with state lawmakers, however, and accused him of caving in and betraying the cause.

“‘Governor McAuliffe should reconsider this dangerous gift to the gun lobby,’ said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, which in the fall poured more than $2 million into two state Senate races at McAuliffe’s request,” the Washington Post reported about the Michael Bloomberg-funded organization.

“Reversing the gutting of carry agreements in exchange for not allowing wife beaters have guns, state police at gun shows (I already see them there regardless), and prohibiting persons from obtaining permits in other states when they were originally rejected in Virginia, is a win,” Townhall insisted, however.

[Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKZ-zjLxiqE

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