Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Virgin Islands’ (USVI) restrictions against firearm possession and concealed carry for Americans that do not have a “residence or place of business” in the Caribbean territory.
Other plaintiffs with GOA include the Gun Owners Foundation and Sean Dale Henry.
“This case involves a challenge to the United States Virgin Islands’ (‘USVI’) wholesale refusal to allow Americans to exercise their enumerated constitutional right to ‘keep and bear Arms’ unless they have a ‘bona fide residence or place of business’ in the USVI,” according to the complaint.
In the complaint, GOA noted:
First, the USVI generally bans the bearing of arms for nonresidents as a general matter, even if licensed to carry by another jurisdiction….Shortly after Bruen recognized a broad, textual and historical right to public carry, the USVI repealed its then-existing statute that had granted limited concealed carry reciprocity to the firearm license holders of other states….Thus, as of 2022, the USVI does not recognize the firearm licenses issued by any state or territory. And, because the USVI also prohibits the “open carry” of firearms…there is no way for nonresidents to “bear arms” in public based on reciprocity.
They added:
Nor does USVI law allow nonresidents to apply for a USVI license to carry. USVI law enumerates five categories of “[p]ersons who may be licensed to carry firearms.” …Those include employees of the government and certain businesses, individuals “having a bona fide residence or place of business within the Virgin Islands,” and, “[w]ith respect to a rifle or a shotgun,” individuals “possessing a valid and current Virgin Islands hunting license.
Therefore, GOA observed, “…although nonresidents ostensibly may obtain a USVI hunting license, such license only applies to long guns and does not authorize the public carry of handguns, the ‘most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense’ and whose ‘complete prohibition … is invalid.’ (Heller).”
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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