It’s life or death, and every second counts. The deciding factor? It’s whether or not you have the ability to protect yourself—and that’s exactly what the state of Virginia is currently trying to restrict.
Here’s the situation. Currently, Virginia honors your right to concealed carry if you’re licensed to do so by any other state. This means if you have a license to carry in another state, you can cross the state line into Virginia and still be able to defend yourself. But Senate Bill 115, which is presently winding through the legislative process, would change that. It would take away that right to defend yourself, instead placing the power of decision-making about whether or not your out-of-state license is valid in the hands of Virginia bureaucrats.
Americans use firearms hundreds of thousands of times per year in situations where their lives are in danger. That’s hundreds of thousands of lives per year saved by carrying a concealed firearm; To put it in perspective, if those people had died instead, that’s per year at least quadruple the number of lives lost during the entire Vietnam War.
These are hundreds of thousands of robberies stopped, rapes denied, assaults prevented, and lives saved.
And it’s normal people, living normal lives, doing normal activities, who experience firsthand the saving power of a concealed carry license.
“Thank God I had my gun.” This was the phrase fervently spoken by an Illinois woman, who was exiting a bank and found herself held at gunpoint. “I was sitting in my car … about to pull off and leave, and he opened my door and put a gun in my face … I started shooting, and he ran … Thank God I was ready.”
This woman’s life mattered. Guns protect women—period. Women are the fastest-growing demographic of gun owners, with the primary cited reason being self-defense. Women, on average, are smaller and less physically strong than men, and men, on average, are responsible for 73% of violent crime. If the most likely scenario for a woman who is a victim of a violent crime is that her perpetrator is a man, it follows that she will most likely not measure up in size and strength.
The point is, when a woman concealed carries a firearm, it levels the playing field of strength and size if a man attacks her.
These are not hypotheticals or games. These are real lives impacted by Senate Bill 115. This new law would disproportionately disenfranchise women.
Per the annual Virginia State Police Report “Crime in Virginia 2024,” there were 421 murders, 5226 rapes, and 12,959 motor vehicle thefts. Overall, 16,853 violent offenses were reported. These numbers could be minimized if the victims were empowered to protect themselves. Instead, the legislature seeks to remove protections further.
Advocates for restricting gun owner rights often describe stories of people who were killed by guns, drawing on the emotions of those listening by blaming the firearm rather than the aggressor. These stories are powerful and devastating, but misdirected. Restricting legal gun owner rights and interstate permissions will only make gun violence worse, because it will remove the legal ability of the victim to protect themselves.
Why do advocates of Senate Bill 115 not care about the stories of women whose lives have been saved by concealed firearms? Why do they ignore the real preventions of rapes, robberies, carjackings, and assaults? Why do they only listen to the stories that seem to affirm the viewpoint they already hold? This is not a genuine weighing of a policy—it is a manipulation of facts to support a radical anti-gun agenda at the expense of safety. It’s ironic that the legislators who deliberate this bill and the governor who may sign it are protected by armed security, and yet are considering removing that same protection from the people they are elected to serve.
Policy changes must be driven by reason, not misguided emotion or willful narrow-mindedness. The law should protect the vulnerable, not expose them to more danger.
Virginia, you don’t have to go down this path. You don’t have to trade real, practical safety measures for a political agenda. You don’t have to take away a woman’s right to concealed carry.