On Tuesday, Virginia’s democrat attorney general revoked the state’s handgun reciprocity agreement with 25 states.
Attorney General Mark Herring (D) claims that the other states’ concealed firearms laws do not meet Virginia’s standards.
Or someone is pandering to the gun control crowd after failures to pass gun control legislation in Virginia. Shifty Governor Terry McAuliffe has taken a page out of Obama’s playbook and issued some executive actions after the Democrats failed to gain legislative power in the state.
“To ensure Virginia’s law and safety standards for concealed handgun permits are applied evenly, consistently, and fairly, I have recommended the State Police terminate the reciprocity agreements with 25 states whose laws are not adequate to prevent issuance of a concealed handgun permit to individuals that Virginia would disqualify,” Herring squawked. “The State Police has accepted that recommendation and has begun sending letters to the 25 states informing them that as of February 1, their permits will no longer be recognized by Virginia.”
Have there been any instances of people from other states coming to Virginia with their concealed guns and committing crimes? The police don’t know.
Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller said the department doesn’t have any statistics on such crimes. “That’s not something we readily track,” she said.
Herring’s order will go into effect on February 1, 2016.
Republicans and Second Amendment advocates were caught off guard by the the announcement.
“I had no hint,” said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. “No hint anywhere that there was a review anywhere or that anything was going to change.”
“Some woman with a child who’s under a death threat by an ex-spouse from Tennessee who comes into Virginia is effectively disarmed so that some politician can look like he’s done something,” Van Cleave said.
“We’re going to want to look at the criteria that they used [to review the agreements] and I bet you we find criteria in there that doesn’t apply.”
“We were surprised to see that,” Bill Howell (R.), Virginia speaker of the house, told the Washington Free Beacon. “I find it interesting that the attorney general said he was going to take the politics out of the attorney generals when he’s really injected them in an even greater way than we’ve seen in recent time.”
Republican majorities in the Virginia House and Senate are looking at legislation to reverse Herring’s order.
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