My letter to Sheriff Carter:
Dear Sheriff Carter,
VCDL is a statewide, grassroot, non-profit, gun-rights organization with 11,000 dues-paying members and another 61,000 email alert subscribers. Our mission is to champion the fundamental human right to self-defense and ensure the liberty of all individuals to own and use firearms responsibly.
I am contacting Virginia localities that are charging $50 for a concealed handgun permit (CHP). Many of the sheriffs and police chiefs that I have contacted were unaware that Virginia law only allows them to charge enough to cover their cost of doing the CHP background check.
The CHP fee has three components: a fixed fee of $10 for the Circuit Court Clerk, $5 for the Virginia State Police, and up to a maximum of $35 for the law-enforcement agency running the background check. In many localities, the background check fee has been dropped to zero, as with modern technology background checks can be done in a few minutes.
When the $35 maximum background check fee was established by the General Assembly, Virginia required fingerprints to get a CHP. That accounted for almost $25 of the $35 fee. About 10 years ago the fingerprinting requirement was dropped, but the $35 was not reduced at the same time. Localities that continued to charge $50 were now making a profit of $25. That was not what the General Assembly had planned when it set the fee. Here is the law that sets the background check fee to no more than the cost to the law-enforcement agency:
§ 18.2-308.03. Fees for concealed handgun permits.
- The clerk shall charge a fee of $10 for the processing of an application or issuing of a permit, including his costs associated with the consultation with law-enforcement agencies. The local law-enforcement agency conducting the background investigation may charge a fee not to exceed $35 to cover the cost of conducting an investigation pursuant to this article…
The reason for this letter is to bring all this to your attention in the hope that you would evaluate your costs and lower, or eliminate, your current $35 background-check fee accordingly.
VCDL tracks the CHP fees statewide. If you want to see what other localities are doing, here is the link: https://vcdl.org/page/chp-fees-per-jurisdiction. Recently, Wythe County Sheriff Anthony Cline dropped his CHP background check fee to zero, so CHPs there are now $15 total.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to me at any time.
