The reelection of Donald Trump as President of the United States hasn’t just signaled a return to sanity in the White House when it comes to the Second Amendment. His outspoken support for our right to arms may be having a trickle-down effect on other executives in America, and not just in the more obvious places.
The governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands recently suggested that he’d like to see the jurisdiction’s gun laws made less restrictive under his leadership. This is a marked and welcomed departure from previous stories we’ve brought you from this American territory.
Governor Albert Bryan, Jr., told The Virgin Islands Consortium, “I think the Virgin Islands gun policy has totally failed.” This was apparently in reference to the territory’s complex and stringent restrictions, which include not just licensing for all firearms, but different categories of licenses, depending on why you want a firearm and what kind you want. There are also prohibitions on many types of firearms, and while a permit to carry is technically available, it is difficult to acquire, even though the territory is subject to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which recognized a right to carry handguns in public for self-defense.
“I think we should move to a place where we open gun ranges that are legal and we make it easier for people to license and carry firearms,” Bryan said. He suggested a lot of otherwise law-abiding residents may be carrying firearms illegally, simply out of concern for their own safety, and may be breaking the law because the current regulations are either too restrictive or too difficult to navigate,
While we certainly do not encourage breaking the law, we do understand the frustration Virgin Islanders may feel when it comes to exercising their right to self-defense. It’s the same frustration felt by many who live in overly restrictive states or cities in the Continental U.S.
Bryan did suggest some provisions that NRA-ILA does not support. But his general themes of lowering burdens and making it easier for well-intentioned residents to comply with the law and have access to ranges are laudable.
He praised law enforcement for doing well with “finding and confiscating illicit weapons,” but still noted, “What we are doing is not working.”
Indeed, that is the first step toward sensible gun policy: recognizing that restricting the rights of the law-abiding to defend themselves will not deter or impede, and may instead encourage, predatory criminals.
Simply put, what does work is empowering the good guys, not the bad guys. To the degree the Virgin Islands adopts that philosophy, they will be moving in the right direction.
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