Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Gun Owners Foundation, and a private citizen sued the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) last week over its blanket prohibition of law-abiding non-residents carrying legal weapons in the territory.
That’s right. A U.S. territory has no pathway for lawful gun possession for U.S. citizens who do not live or have a business on the islands.
The filing charged that even nonresidents licensed to carry elsewhere face a myriad of procedural obstacles that make it impossible to legally have a firearm on the islands.
Fundamental rights remain in effect when traveling in a US territory
Luis Valdes, GOA’s USVI outreach director, expressed frustrations shared by upstanding citizens who are arbitrarily stripped of their Second Amendment rights.
“The Second Amendment doesn’t end at the shoreline,” Valdes declared. “Americans don’t lose their constitutional rights simply because they travel to a U.S. territory. The USVI has created a system where law-abiding citizens are categorically denied the ability to exercise a fundamental constitutional right based solely on where they live.”
Territory’s oppressive gun laws are as unique as they are unconstitutional
Like a handful of U.S. states, the USVI responded to 2022’s U.S. Supreme Court Bruen decision by racing in the other direction. The limited reciprocity it allowed with residents of another state or territory disappeared.
This despite Bruen’s plain determination that qualified Americans enjoy the right to bear arms away from home.
The GOA lawsuit follows the legal trails blazed by its earlier efforts against California and New York over their own restrictive gun control schemes. Those important suits were ultimately successful and greatly benefited those who must travel to make a living.
The Constitution and federal law certainly apply to U.S. territories, and the USVI apparatus is shockingly impenetrable in ways its continental anti-Second Amendment brethren doubtlessly envy.
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