Starting today, May 24, 2016, legislation goes into effect that will allow most West Virginia residents to carry concealed handguns without a permit.
They also aren't required to have any training. At all. As in zero. Nadda. Zilch.
That means no safety training with a gun is required. No live-fire training with a gun is required. They aren't even required to watch a 5 minute video on gun safety.
This is insane.
West Virginia is now one of eight states where no permits are required: Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi and Vermont.
I watched some of the video of West Virginians legislators talking about this decision and it boggles my mind this passed.
Friends who carry concealed guns take the required training very, very seriously. One has explained how dangerous it is for people from states with weak or no training requirements to be allowed reciprocity carry with his state.
The people in the conceal carry world hammer on the need for training. I was watching a live fire conceal carry training video today. A guy who regularly carries a gun and spends hours at the firing range froze up and screwed up in a live fire training session. And he knew this training was happening!
But apparently the good legislators from West Virginia know better than the experts in the conceal carry world and their own experts in law enforcement.
Incompetent Guys With Guns
I often wonder what it would take to convince legislators to tighten up conceal carry gun laws in states like this. Do they need to see a specific number of gun negligence accidents caused by lack of training? Are they shooting for a certain number of kids killing themselves with guns? Do they need to see new stories of people with no training with conceal weapons killing innocent people?
It appears to me that all the deaths and injuries are allowable because a few people with no training and no permit once stopped a bad guy with a gun.
Starting tomorrow we can keep track of what this lack of permits and training brings the good people of West Virginia. Link to Gun Violence Archive West Virginia incidents the last two years.
