Our Accomplishments
As an all-volunteer, grassroots organization, WVCDL depends on
its members and supporters to volunteer their time and energy to
promote and defend our rights. We are proud to have achieved the
following results for West Virginia gun owners:
2007
WVCDL authored and got the
following bills introduced in the Legislature:
- SB 647: providing current and
retired law-enforcement officers access to the necessary certification
programs for certification to carry concealed firearms nationwide under
the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004.
- SB 648: enacting a state statute
prohibiting firearm "straw" purchases. This bill mirrors laws passed in
2006 in Virginia and 2008 in Georgia that are designed to prevent
gun-grabbing New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his ilk from
dispatching private investigators to licensed gun dealers in states
with reasonable gun laws, where they then entice the dealers into
selling a firearm to a purchaser who appears to intend to immediately
resell or otherwise transfer the firearm to a prohibited possessor.
These schemes were designed to allow Bloomberg to sue these dealers for
their allegedly unlawful sales and have resulted in many dealers going
out of business and others entering into settlement agreements that
included allowing Bloomberg full access to all their records, including
all Forms 4473 on file. This in turn violates the privacy of thousands
of gun owners who bought their guns, legally, through the targeted
dealers.
- SB 649: repealing the State
Capitol carry ban.
- SB 715: strengthening and
expanding the state firearms preemption law. This bill included
language that would repeal the grandfather clause in the existing
preemption law, preempt carry bans on all public property where the
Legislature has not prohibited carrying by law, and expand the scope of
preemption from local ordinances to all forms of official action.
- SB 716: updating and clarifying
procedures for concealed handgun license background checks. This bill
would have qualified West Virginia for reciprocity with Minnesota, New
Mexico, and Texas, and would also have qualified licensees for an
exemption from having to undergo an NICS background check when
purchasing a firearm through a licensed dealer in West Virginia (click here
for list of current states that issue NICS-exempt licenses).
- SB 717: establishing nonresident
concealed handgun licenses. Although imperfect, this bill would have
provided an option for residents of every state to have some means of
being able to lawfully carry a concealed handgun in West Virginia by
removing the requirement that an applicant be a West Virginia resident.
Nonresidents would have been allowed to apply to the sheriff of any
county while residents would continue to be required to apply to the
sheriff of their home county. The current reciprocity law limits
recognition of reciprocal states' licenses to resident licenses.
WVCDL played a key role in
expanding concealed carry reciprocity after HB 3074 took effect.
- WVCDL played an essential role in establishing
reciprocity with Pennsylvania. When the West Virginia Attorney General
initially could not get the necessary cooperation from the Pennsylvania
Attorney General and State Police to determine whether Pennsylvania met
the eligibility criteria of West Virginia's reciprocity law, WVCDL went
to work. We contacted key Pennsylvania state officials and
Pennsylvania gun rights activists who wanted a reciprocity agreement as
much as we did and brought the appropriate officials in both states
together to make this agreement possible.
- WVCDL played key roles in the establishment of
reciprocity agreements with Michigan, Missouri, and Tennessee by doing
the legwork of identifying the officials in those states who handled
reciprocity agreements and getting them in tough with the West Virginia
Attorney General to establish their respective agreements.
2008
WVCDL batted a perfect 1.000
against anti-gun legislation:
- WVCDL was the only organization that opposed a proposed
rule of the Lottery Commission that would have banned weapons in the
casino area of the state's four racetracks. Thanks to our efforts and
the behind-the-scenes work of Delegate Scott Varner, D-Marshall, the
House Judiciary Committee amended SB
417 to require the Lottery Commission to remove the carry ban
language when it finally promulgates the racetrack table games rules
later this spring. SB
417 ultimately passed and became law with WVCDL's amendment.
- When legislators attempted to add a $30 surcharge to
every concealed handgun license--raising the total fees from $90 to
$120 per license--WVCDL was the only organization that lobbied of the
House Finance Committee to remove the proposed fee increases from HB
4471. Thanks to our efforts and the work of committee member
Delegate Sharon Spencer, D-Kanawha, this and many other fee increases
were removed from HB
4471. Although one unrelated fee increase was restored to the bill
in the Senate, HB
4471 became law without any fee increase for concealed handgun
licenses.
- Delegate John Doyle's perennial one-handgun-per-month gun
rationing bill, HB
2375, again died a silent death in the House Judiciary Committee.
WVCDL authored and got the
following bills introduced in the Legislature:
- SB 136: repealing the Sate
Capitol carry ban (carryover from 2007).
- SB 152: providing current and
retired law-enforcement officers access to the necessary certification
programs for certification to carry concealed firearms nationwide under
the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004 (carryover from
2007). This bill unanimously passed the Senate but died in the
House Judiciary Committee.
- SB 178: nonresident concealed
handgun licenses (carryover from 2007).
- SB
228 and HB
4683: Concealed handgun reciprocity reform -- universal
recognition. This bill would have more than doubled the number of
states with which West Virginia would be able to establish concealed
carry reciprocity by recognizing all other states' licenses.
- SB
230: reducing concealed handgun license fees from $90 to $50
per 5-year license. This bill was rewritten by the Senate Judiciary
Committee to provide for a minor tweaking of the reciprocity law and
unanimously passed the Senate, but died in the House Judiciary
Committee. If the House Judiciary Committee had acted on this bill, it
would have been used as a vehicle for other desired improvements in the
concealed carry law.
- SB
252: enacting a state statute prohibiting firearm "straw"
purchases (carryover from 2007).
- SB
319: clarifying the regulation of how firearms may be
carried or transported. This bill would have amended various hunting
regulations to clarify an individual's right to openly carry a firearm
in vehicles and wooded areas for lawful, non-hunting purposes such as
personal protection. The existing regulations are confusing,
inconsistently applied by various law-enforcement agencies, and have
been an occasional source of harassment.
- SB
728: strengthening language limiting the ability of public
officials to abuse emergency management powers laws to infringe upon
firearm rights.
- SB
730: eliminating obsolete weapons' licensing statutory
language.
- SB 732: strengthening and
expanding the state firearms preemption law (carryover from 2007).
WVCDL Forms Political Action
Committee
To provide a means for evaluating
and endorsing candidates for
office, WVCDL established a political action committee, WVCDL-PAC.
WVCDL-PAC will identify those candidates for legislative and certain
statewide offices who are most supportive of our rights and, though its
candidate questionnaires, educate candidates about our issues and
commit responding candidates to specific positions on several specific
bills important to WVCDL.
WVCDL Publishes Responses to First
Candidate Surveys
Click
here to view the WVCDL-PAC candidate surveys and all responses
received.
WVCDL Defends Preemption Laws
WVCDL stopped a proposed city
property gun ban in the City of Ranson that would have violated the
municipal gun control preemption statute.
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