A ban on AR-15s, suppressors, and ammunition magazines holding more than 15 rounds, passed the U.S. Virgin Islands’ legislature Friday and is headed to the governor’s desk.
The gun controls are contained in Bill 36-0144.
The Virgin Islands Consortium reported the bill also “[requires] safety training for licensed rifle and shotgun holders.”
The bill has been strongly opposed by gun rights groups but Virgin Islands Attorney General Gordon Rhea supports it.
Rhea pointed to how the gun control bill contains language allowing concealed carry in public and claimed the bill “was written to protect the constitutional rights of law-abiding Virgin Islanders to keep and bear arms.”
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He also suggested it gives police greater ability to “keep illegal guns out of the wrong hands.”
Virgin Islands Safe Gun Owners’ Kosei Ohno countered Rhea, saying the bill actually burdens “law-abiding people who register, train, pay, wait, and try to obey.”
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division already has a lawsuit filed against the Virgin Island’s firearm licensing scheme. That lawsuit, filed June 10, 2026, seeks a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the licensing gun control.
No word yet on whether the DOJ will file a second lawsuit if Bill 36-0144 is signed into law.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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