The amateurism on the part of the USVI Attorney General’s Office has been on full display throughout the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division’s lawsuit challenging some of the territory’s gun laws, and now the arrogance of the USVI Senate is taking center stage thanks to new litigation from Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation.
The issue in Henry v. USVI is the territory’s complete block on the right to bear arms by non-residents. It’s an issue I touched on about a month ago, when I discovered that the USVI Police Department’s website that’s supposed to contain instructions for non-residents was a dead link. The complaint in Henry provides plenty of evidence that is by design.
Henry called the USVI Police Department, multiple times, and at multiple numbers posted on the USVI Police Department’s website. But these attempts to reachUSVI officials have been to no avail. In fact, Mr.Henry has been unable to get the USVI police to so much as pick up the telephone.
The fact that the USVI police do not answer their phone makes Plaintiff’s need to keep and bear arms for his own self-defense all the more vital.
On October 13, 2025, Mr. Henry contacted the USVI Police Department, Office of Police Commissioner at (340) 715-5506. There was no answer and no way for Mr. Henry to leave a message. Thinking that the office may be closed due to the Columbus Day federal holiday, Mr. Henry tried again the next day. On October 14, 2025, Mr. Henry called the same number, but again, there was no answer and no way for Mr. Henry to leave a message.
On that same day, Mr. Henry made a third phone call to the main number on theUSVI Police Department’s website: (340) 776-9110.7 This number returned a message that it was“not in service.”
That same day, Mr. Henry placed a fourth phone call to another number he found online for the USVI police: (340) 715-5221. However, that number also was not in service.
Mr. Henry then contacted the USVI Office of the Police Chief at (340) 715-5548.Upon automatic answering, this line returned a message that it was “unavailable.”
Despite these repeated attempts, Mr. Henry has been unable to contact anyone atthe USVI Police Department to obtain an application for a nonresident license to possess or carry a firearm. Of course, constitutional rights do not rise or fall with the proper operation of a government telephone number.
Thus, due to (i) the operation of USVI law and (ii) the inaction of the USVI police, there is no avenue for Mr. Henry to apply for and to receive a license to carry a concealed handgun in the USVI because he is a nonresident.
I’m sure this comes as no surprise to Police Commissioner Mario Brooks, Governor Albert Bryant, or many of the USVI legislators who recently voted to overhaul the territory’s gun laws in an attempt to moot the DOJ’s complaint.
Though the senators claimed to have addressed the DOJ’s issues, like a “may issue” permitting system and draconian gun storage rules that allowed police to conduct warrantless inspections of the homes of gun owners, the new law is still riddled with infringements on the right to keep and bear arms.
That includes a ban on so-called assault weapons that is nearly identical to the one struck down by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which also has jurisdiction over the USVI. What the new law doesn’t include, however, is any way for non-residents to lawfully bear arms while visiting the territory.
Shortly after Bruen recognized a broad, textual and historical right to public carry, the USVI repealed its then-existing statute that had granted limited concealed carry reciprocity to the firearm license holders of other states. Thus, as of 2022, the USVI does not recognize the firearm licenses issued by any state or territory. And, because the USVI also prohibits the “open carry” of firearms (14 V.I.C. § 2253), there is no way for nonresidents to “bear arms” in public based on reciprocity.
Nor does USVI law allow nonresidents to apply for a USVI license to carry. USVI law enumerates five categories of “[p]ersons who may be licensed to carry firearms.” 23 V.I.C.§ 454. Those include employees of the government and certain businesses, individuals “having a bona fide residence or place of business within the Virgin Islands,” and, “[w]ith respect to a rifle or a shotgun,” individuals “possessing a valid and current Virgin Islands hunting license.”
Thus, although nonresidents ostensibly may obtain a USVI hunting license, such license only applies to long guns and does not authorize the public carry of handguns, the “most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense” and whose “complete prohibition … is invalid.”
As the lawsuit points out, non-residents can’t even keep a handgun in their lodging unless they have a USVI-issued permit, which isn’t available for visitors.
The Senate was warned by Second Amendment advocates like Kostas Moros of the Second Amendment Foundation and Virgin Islands Safe Gun Owners founder Kosei Ohno that Bill No. 36-0144 was hot garbage during the limited amount of testimony the Senate allowed on the bill, but the vast majority of senators ignored those warnings and wholeheartedly embraced the legislation, as did Gov. Bryant.
The Senate could have addressed this glaring infringement on the right to bear arms by coming up with a permitting system for non-residents, or by establishing reciprocity agreements with the 50 states. They chose not to do so, and now their ban on non-resident carry will soon come to an end. Henry could also prove to be an ideal reciprocity case for the Supreme Court, given the total prohibition on non-resident carry in the territory. The anti-2A arrogance of the USVI legislature may end up benefitting gun owners across the United States when all is said and done. The gun control lobby is surely aware of that possibility, and my guess is we’ll see an attempt by the USVI Senate to moot this lawsuit as well in the not-too-distant future.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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