Virginia Governor Signs Concealed Carry Reciprocity Bill, Concealed Carriers Rejoice

It has been an interesting few months regarding concealed carry reciprocity in Virginia. To review, back in December, the Virginia AG announced that they would not be recognizing concealed carry permits from other states.

Then at the end of January, they announced that these changes would not be going into affect du eto a “bipartisan deal” the Democrats and Republicans reached.

Fast forward to February 26, 2016 which is when Governor Terry McAuliffee signed H.B. 1163 and S.B. 610 which allows anyone with a concealed carry permit issues from any other state to carry concealed in Virginia.

“Are the actions we take going to make Virginians safer?” McAuliffe said. “And unequivocally, they said yes.”

According to the Virginia State Police website, these changes will go into affect on July 1, 2016 and has 4 requirements:

• the holder of such permit or license  is at least 21 years of age; and
• the permit or license holder carries a photo identification issued by a government agency of any state or by the U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. Department of State; and
• the holder displays the permit or license and such identification upon demand by a law-enforcement officer; and
• the permit or license holder has not previously had a Virginia concealed handgun permit revoked.

This does not mean people with a Virginia permit can carry in any other state though. Virginia will still work out reciprocity agreements with individual states. As always, we will keep our Concealed Carry Reciprocity Maps as up to date as possible. On July 1st, we will make the changes to the maps to show that Virginia accepts all other state’s permits.