Hi, I'm Firearms attorney Gilbert Ambler, and as you may know, if you watch this channel, a lot of my practice is in the state of Virginia, and today we're going to talk about Virginia laws and what we want to focus on today is carrying a firearm in Virginia without a valid or recognized concealed handgun permit. Now, Virginia is pretty good if you do have a concealed handgun permit. If you're traveling from out of state visiting Virginia, as long as you have a concealed handgun permit from any other state and you're over the age of 21 and Virginia has never revoked a concealed handgun permit that you held in the past, Virginia's going to recognize your out of state permit. So pretty easy if you do have a concealed handgun permit.
If however, you don't have a concealed handgun permit, that's where things start to get more interesting.
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Alright, if you don't have a concealed handgun permit, a couple of ways that you could carry. The first is open carry. Virginia is generally speaking an open carry state as long as you are otherwise eligible to possess the firearm, you can open carry the firearm. However, open carry gets dicey in two scenarios. The first is if you have what Virginia calls an assault weapon, their term, not mine, okay? This is found in Virginia code, but Virginia says an assault weapon is any center fire, rifle or pistol that is equipped at the time of the offense with a magazine capable of holding over 20 rounds. So we don't care whether you only have 19 rounds in the magazine. If the magazine can hold 30 rounds, Virginia is going to consider it an assault weapon.
The second part of that definition is going to be any weapon that is equipped from the manufacturer to accommodate a silencer. So I don't know why this bothers Virginia, but if it's got a threaded muzzle, it's going to be an assault firearm.
Third part of the definition is going to be any firearm equipped with a folding stock. Again, not sure why this particularly bothers Virginia, but they're going to consider it an assault weapon. Finally, the last part of the definition is any shotgun, which is capable of holding over seven rounds of ammunition of the longest type of ammunition for which it is chambered. So if it's chambered in three and a half inch, we've got to figure out can it hold over seven rounds of three and a half inch shells.
If you were carrying one of those weapons weapon equipped with a mag over 20 rounds center fire weapon equipped with a mag over 20 rounds, a weapon that can accommodate a silencer or suppressor has a folding stock or a shotgun that holds over seven rounds of the longest ammo. Then you have to worry about the fact that there are
Multiple cities in Virginia that have banned their carry unless you have a concealed handgun permit. Meaning, if you had a concealed handgun permit, you could still carry those firearms either openly or concealed in public, but without the concealed handgun permit, you can't carry them in public. So that's first complication we run to if we don't have a concealed handgun permit. The second is what happens when we get inside a vehicle, and a lot of this focuses on the definition of when a firearm becomes concealed. There are other states, for example, I practice up the road in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is going to consider it concealed. Anytime you get in the vehicle, they're going to basically consider it a concealed firearm, not so here in Virginia, in Virginia, we're going to focus on whether the weapon is hidden from common observation. Can somebody glance at it and immediately tell that it's a firearm? The problem with this occurs often where people put the firearms on their person or in their vehicle when driving, because if you get pulled over and a police officer testifies that it took him a little while to see the firearm or that he wasn't able to immediately discern that it was a firearm, then they're going to argue that it was unlawfully concealed if you don't have a recognized license or permit.
So the other way that you could consider carrying inside a vehicle in the state of Virginia is to put the firearm inside a secured container. And this exception applies to personal vehicles. So if you're in a company truck, it doesn't work and it applies to handguns, so it doesn't cover long guns, but there is an exception in Virginia if you have a handgun inside a personally owned motor vehicle, and you can actually have the handgun loaded, provided is in a secured container. Now, secured does not mean locked secured typically means latched, and so you can have it in a center console, in a glove box, or in some other type of closed container provided it is a latched or closed container. In fact, there was a Supreme Court of Virginia decision where they found that a handgun in the backpack on the passenger floorboard where the backpack was zipped up was inside a secured container sufficient to fit in this definition.
Here's where this can get people in trouble. However, it can get people in trouble in a couple ways. Actually, the first way is if you have a gun in a zipped up backpack and you forget that you have it in there and you get out of the car because the exception for concealing it that way in a secured container only applies inside the motor vehicle. So as soon as you get out, then you would have an unlawfully concealed handgun on your person if you don't have a concealed handgun permit. The second way this can get people in trouble is a case I actually dealt with was a case where somebody had their firearm inside their glove box and their glove box was latched, and when they got pulled over, they got pulled over for a window tint issue. When they got pulled over, they opened up their glove box to get out their registration and handed over to the police officer and the police officer charged them with unlawfully carrying concealed weapon.
What was the argument from the commonwealth in this case? Well, the commonwealth was arguing. The state of Virginia was arguing you can have this gun inside a secured container, but since you opened the glove box up to get your registration out, it was no longer a secured container and therefore we can charge you with the class one misdemeanor. Ha ha. Good news for my client. We got the charges dismissed in this case, and I'll tell you, I would think in every scenario we would likely get those charges dismissed because that is pretty weak facts to criminally charge somebody. But keep in mind, you don't want to go through the criminal justice process. What's my advice to you? My advice is if you're eligible, go get yourself a concealed handgun permit. Take a class. It's quick, it's easy, it's affordable. Yes, Virginia wants you to take a class unless you fall under an exemption, but training is a good thing. It's always good to have more training. Go get yourself a concealed handgun permit. If you have additional questions about carrying handguns or any firearms in Virginia, drop them in the comments for us. Until next time.
YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lcgE8YT0KU
Credit: Gilbert Ambler, Esq.