The U.S. Virgin Islands Senate adopted a massive gun control bill on Friday after more than a year of gamesmanship and giving gun owners the runaround, and at almost the same moment as the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion for a temporary injunction blocking the territory's abusive gun licensing law from being enforced by the USVI Police Commissioner Mario Brooks.
The gun control bill, known as Bill 36-0144, would make the already restrictive gun laws in the U.S. Virgin Islands measurably worse. It imposes a ban on magazines that can hold more than 15 rounds, suppressors, and so-called assault weapons, as well as creating number of new "gun-free zones" where firearms are prohibited.
Luis Valdes, Southeast Regional Director for Gun Owners of America, also sharply opposed the bill. He criticized the Legislature for seeking to ban suppressors, which he said are used to reduce gun noise at ranges. Mr. Valdes said lawmakers were seeking to ban something that is “beneficial for public health.”
He also objected to the term “large capacity magazine,” calling it “politically arduous and propagandous.” According to Mr. Valdes, those magazines are standard.
Like Mr. Ohno, Mr. Valdes said he was open to working with lawmakers to rewrite the bill. He suggested that the measure was simply an attempt to “moot” the federal Department of Justice lawsuit. He also said the multiple amendments and the alleged lack of public access to the latest version “reeks of malfeasance, both politically and legislatively.”
Kostos Moros, Director of Legal Research and Education at the Second Amendment Foundation, warned that the federal lawsuit “doesn’t just go away” if Bill 36-0144 is enacted. He predicted that the U.S. Department of Justice would “amend it and grow it to cover all these other things you’re doing.”
Mr. Moros encouraged the local Department of Justice to wait for the outcome of the federal lawsuit before attempting to address issues beyond licensing.
Despite the concerns raised by Virgin Islands Safe Gun Owners' Kosei Ohno, GOA's Valdes, and SAF's Moros, the Senate approved the bill with just two dissenting votes. Many who'd come to testify against the bill said they'd not even been able to read the latest language, and several senators who ended up voting for the bill expressed concern with various parts of the legislation.
The USVI Attorney General and Senator Marvin Blyden both pledged to offer supplementary amendments to the legislation, but Governor Albert Bryan should veto this legislation as soon as it gets to his desk. Even some supporters of the bill say it needs further revision, and Moros is on point by noting that the DOJ is likely to amend its existing complaint to challenge much of the bill as it's currently written.
The Justice Department is already asking a judge to grant an injunction blocking the territory's current licensing regime from being enforced, arguing that an injunction is necessary to stop a "flagrantly unconstitutional state of affairs."
VIPD effectuates the USVI’s unconstitutional licensing scheme. The USVI licensing scheme is precisely the type of “may issue” system that the Supreme Court invalidated in Bruen.
USVI law requires citizens to obtain a license to possess a firearm. A person convicted of possessing a firearm without the required license must serve a minimum 10-year prison sentence. VIPD and Commissioner Brooks are vested with the responsibility for accepting, reviewing, investigating, and adjudicating firearm licenses. Unfortunately, to obtain a firearm license in USVI, an applicant must “establish to the satisfaction of the Commissioner that he has good reason to fear death or great injury to his person or property, or . . . any other proper reason for carrying a firearm.” Thus, the USVI’s “may issue” licensing statute is practically indistinguishable from the New York statute struck down in Bruen. Thus, four years after Bruen was decided, USVI has failed to remedy this glaring defect in its statute.
This is supposedly being "fixed" in the gun control bill adopted on Friday, but as the DOJ's motion for an injunction points out, Brooks is already going beyond his statutory authority (and violating the Second Amendment) when issuing licenses.
The firearms licenses issued by Commissioner Brooks limit licensees to possession of firearms in a particular place only. VIPD imposes this restriction by writing “HOME PROTECTION” or “BUSINESS PROTECTION” on the back of each firearm license. This practice violates the Second Amendment in at least two respects. First, VIPD effectively prohibits law-abiding citizens from possessing firearms anywhere but a particular place. VIPD does not allow general public carry. But one of Bruen’s central holdings is that the Second Amendment protects a “general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense.”
Secondly, nothing in the USVI licensing statute specifically authorizes the Commissioner to restrict the possession of firearms to a particular place. Instead, the Commissioner has imposed this regulation pursuant to the unbridled discretion the USVI legislature has conferred on him to issue, modify, and amend firearms licensing regulations “which he may deem necessary or appropriate.” Another central holding of Bruen (indeed, the fundamental holding on which the decision rests) is that only “shall-issue” licensing schemes that
contain “narrow, objective, and definite standards guiding licensing officials” are constitutional.
If Brooks is already going beyond what the statute specifically authorizes him to do , how can anyone be assured he won't continue using his discretion or asserting authority that doesn't belong to him if Gov. Bryant signs Bill 36-0144 into law?
This bill is an attempt to moot the DOJ's lawsuit, as well as an effort to foist even more restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. It should have been defeated outright, but now that the Senate has refused to adhere to the limitations imposed on them by the Second Amendment the territorial governor needs to step up and reject this bill... and any future legislation that would turn a fundamental civil right into a privilege doled out by the powers that be.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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