Then you should thank
VCDL! And if you haven't
joined VCDL
yet, why not?
Prior to 2004 there was NO gun show at Chantilly, or
anywhere in Fairfax County. This is because of the
onerous legal hurdles Fairfax County used to impose on
gun owners, prospective owners, and dealers. One such
hurdle was a 3-day waiting period to purchase. Now,
who's gonna buy a gun at a gun show in Fairfax county if
the dealer can't deliver the gun to you for three days?
Even if you purchased on a Friday the dealer would be
back in his home city before the 3 day wait on the
transaction expired (the gun show runs through Sunday).
Due to ordinances such as these, a gun show just wasn't
feasible in Fairfax Co. until VCDL got full state
preemption passed. To read more about preemption and
what it does for gun owners, see the Open Carry page and
its explanation of Virginia code
§
15.2-915.
A snippet from the open carry
page is below:
Virginia enacts all laws pertaining to firearms (except
discharge) at the state level. This is called
“pre-emption” which means local towns, cities, and
counties may not create their own firearms laws
(excluding discharge laws). Why is
this important? Without pre-emption you might be able to
carry a firearm with a 15 round magazine in county “A”
but as soon as you crossed the border into county “B” (a
new political jurisdiction) their laws might be
different; perhaps 10 round magazines are the legal
limit there. You have now broken the law by simply
crossing an invisible political line from one county to
the next. Realizing that citizens could not possibly
keep up to date on various laws in every VA locality the
state has wisely implemented uniform statewide firearm
laws. Now, getting to the point: Is Open Carry legal in
VA? The answer can be found in the specific firearms
code which you just learned about, the Virginia
“pre-emption” law:
§
15.2-915. Control of
firearms; applicability to authorities and local
governmental agencies.
A.
No locality shall adopt or enforce any ordinance,
resolution or motion, as permitted by §
15.2-1425, and no agent of
such locality shall take any administrative action,
governing the purchase, possession, transfer, ownership,
carrying, storage or
transporting of firearms, ammunition, or components or
combination thereof other than those expressly
authorized by statute. For purposes of this section, a
statute that does not refer to firearms, ammunition, or
components or combination thereof, shall not be
construed to provide express authorization.
Nothing in this section shall prohibit a locality from adopting
workplace rules relating to terms and conditions of
employment of the workforce. Nothing in this section
shall prohibit a law-enforcement officer, as defined in
§
9.1-101 from acting within
the scope of his duties.
The provisions of this section applicable to a locality shall also
apply to any authority or to a local governmental
entity, including a department or agency, but not
including any local or regional jail or juvenile
detention facility.
B.
Any local ordinance,
resolution or motion adopted prior to the effective date
of this act governing the purchase, possession,
transfer, ownership,
carrying or transporting
of firearms, ammunition, or components or combination
thereof, other than those expressly authorized by
statute,
is invalid.
(1987, c. 629, § 15.1-29.15; 1988, c. 392; 1997, cc. 550, 587; 2002,
c. 484; 2003, c. 943; 2004, cc. 837, 923.)
