WEST virginia legislature
2025 regular session
Enrolled
Committee Substitute
for
Senate Bill 270
By Senators Martin, Rose, Thorne, Deeds, Phillips, Rucker, Hart, Bartlett, and Morris
[Passed April 9, 2025; in effect 90 days from passage (July 8, 2025)]
AN ACT to amend and reenact §15-5-19a of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to limiting restrictions of firearms owners during certain states of emergency and other like states; declaring the sale, repair, maintenance, and manufacture of firearms, ammunition, and related accessories and components to be essential businesses and services for the purposes of safety and security in times of declared emergency or any other statutorily authorized responses to disaster, war, acts of terrorism, riot or civil disorder, or other emergencies; adding entities engaged in providing firearms safety training, or firearms safety instructor courses, classes, or programs to a list of entities the operation of which may not be restricted by state action in an emergency; limiting restrictions on lawful hunting or fishing activities in an emergency; prohibiting specific governmental regulation of firearms, ammunition, components or accessories of any kind or nature, or their use or possession; extending the expiration date of concealed license during emergencies; providing enumerated exceptions that would permit limited government action in the regulation of firearms in emergencies in certain narrowly tailored factual scenarios; creating an action for damages, injunctive relief, declaratory relief, or other appropriate redress for the unlawful seizure or confiscation of firearms or related accessories and components; and providing for civil damages.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
(b) Except as provided in this section, no state agency, political subdivision, or any elected or appointed official or employee thereof, may, under any governmental authority or color of law exercised as part of any statutorily authorized responses to disaster, war, acts of terrorism, riot or civil disorder, or as part of any federal or state declared state of emergency or preparedness of whatever kind or nature:
(1) Prohibit or restrict the otherwise lawful possession, use, carrying, transfer, transportation, storage, sale, display, or other lawful use of a firearm or ammunition, any firearm or ammunition component or accessory, ammunition reloading equipment and supplies, or personal weapons other than firearms;
(2) Seize, confiscate, or authorize the seizure or confiscation of any otherwise lawfully possessed firearm or ammunition, any firearm or ammunition component or accessory, ammunition reloading equipment and supplies, or otherwise lawful personal weapons other than firearms unless:
(A) The person acting on behalf of or under the authority of the state, a county, or municipality is:
(i) Defending himself or herself or another from an assault; or
(ii) Arresting a person in actual possession of a firearm or ammunition for a violation of law; or
(B) The firearm or ammunition is being seized or confiscated as evidence of a crime;
(3) Require registration of any firearm or ammunition, any firearm or ammunition component or accessory, ammunition reloading equipment and supplies, or otherwise lawful personal weapons other than firearms;
(4) Suspend or revoke a license to carry a concealed deadly weapon or provisional license to carry a concealed deadly weapon issued pursuant to §61-7-1 et seq. of this code except as expressly authorized in that article;
(5) Willfully refuse to accept an application for a license to carry a concealed deadly weapon or provisional license to carry a concealed deadly weapon, provided the application has been properly completed in accordance with §61-7-1 et seq. of this code;
(6) Close or limit the operating hours of any entity engaged in the lawful selling or servicing of any firearm, including any component or accessory, ammunition, ammunition reloading equipment and supplies, or personal weapons other than firearms;
(7) Close or limit the operating hours of any indoor or outdoor shooting range; or any entity engaged in providing firearms safety training or firearms safety instructor courses, classes, or programs;
(8) Place restrictions or quantity limitations on any entity regarding the lawful sale or servicing of any firearm or ammunition, any firearm or ammunition component or accessory, ammunition reloading equipment and supplies, or personal weapons other than firearms; or
(9) Suspend, restrict, or prohibit otherwise lawful hunting or fishing activities
(c) The prohibitions of §15-5-19a(b)(1) do not prohibit the state or an authorized state or local authority from ordering and enforcing an evacuation or general closure of businesses in the affected area during a declared state of emergency.
(d)(1) If a license to carry a concealed deadly weapon or provisional license to carry a concealed deadly weapon has been issued to a person pursuant to §61-7-4 of this code, and if the date that the valid and subsisting license would or is scheduled to expire falls within the period of emergency declared by the Governor's executive order or the 14 days immediately preceding that declaration, then, notwithstanding the date of scheduled expiration, the duration of that license is automatically extended for a period of 60 days commencing from the date of the license’s scheduled expiration or 30 days commencing from the termination of the state of emergency, whichever is later.
(2) If §15-5-19a(d)(1) of this subsection applies with respect to a license to carry a concealed deadly weapon or provisional license to carry a concealed deadly weapon, then during the extension period described in that section that is applicable to that license, all of the following apply:
(A) The license shall be valid for all purposes under the laws of this state and the person to whom the license was issued shall be considered for all purposes under the laws of this state to be the holder of a valid license to carry a concealed handgun;
(B) The license remains subject to the operation of §61-7-1, et seq., of this code during the extended period of the license and at any other time; and
(C) Except for the date of scheduled expiration, all other conditions, and restrictions otherwise applicable to the license and the license holder continue to apply during the extended period of the license and at any other time.
(e) This section shall not apply to the following:
(1) The authority of a chief administrative officer of a political subdivision with police powers to prohibit the sale, offering for sale, dispensing, or transportation of firearms or other dangerous weapons, ammunition, dynamite, or other dangerous explosives in, to, or from a cordoned-off area when engaged in suppressing a riot or when there is a clear and present danger of a riot as that term is delineated in §15-1D-1 et. seq. of this code;
(2) The ability of a law-enforcement officer to remove firearms or ammunition from any person pursuant to other lawful authority: Provided, That before releasing the individual, the law-enforcement officer shall return to the individual any seized firearms and ammunition, and components thereof, and any firearms accessories and ammunition-reloading equipment and supplies, unless:
(A) The officer takes the individual into physical custody for engaging in criminal activity or for observation; or
(B) Seizes the items as evidence pursuant to an investigation for the commission of a crime; or
(3) A zoning ordinance that specifies the hours of operation or the geographic areas where the commercial sale of firearms, firearm components, or ammunition for firearms may occur: Provided, that the zoning ordinance is consistent with the provisions of §8-12-5a(h)(2) of this code.
(f)(1) Any individual, person, group, or entity adversely affected by a violation of this section, or by any manner of law, ordinance, rule, regulation, resolution, practice, or other action enacted or enforced in violation of the provisions of this section, may seek relief in an action at law or in equity for damages, injunctive relief, declaratory relief, or other appropriate redress against any state agency, county, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state, or against any elected or appointed official or employee of this state, a county, municipality or any other political subdivision of this state, that subjects the individual, or causes the individual, to be subjected, to an action prohibited by this section.
(2) Such suit may be filed:
(A) In the court having jurisdiction over the county in which the aggrieved person resides, or group or entity is located, or in which the violation occurred; or
(B) In the case of an action by the state or any state agency, in the circuit court of Kanawha County.
(g) In addition to any other remedy at law or in equity, an individual who is adversely affected by the seizure or confiscation of any firearm or ammunition component or accessory, ammunition reloading equipment and supplies, or otherwise lawful personal weapons other than firearms in violation of this section:
(1) May bring an action for the return of the seized or confiscated property in the circuit court of the county in which that individual resides or in which the seized or confiscated property is located and, except where those weapons have been seized as part of a lawful arrest as provided in §15-5-19a(d)(2), that court shall order the immediate return of the items by the seizing or confiscating governmental office and that office's employed officials; and
(2) That individual shall also be entitled to recover a civil penalty for damages, in the amount of $5,000 per violation, against any person who violates the seizure or confiscation restrictions in this section.
(3) A prevailing plaintiff in an action brought under §15-5-19a(f) or §15-5-19a(g) is also entitled to recover the following:
(A) Actual damages, including consequential damages;
(B) Court costs and fees; and
(C) Reasonable attorney’s fees.
The Clerk of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Delegates hereby certify that the foregoing bill is correctly enrolled.
...............................................................
Clerk of the Senate
...............................................................
Clerk of the House of Delegates
Originated in the Senate.
In effect 90 days from passage.
...............................................................
President of the Senate
...............................................................
Speaker of the House of Delegates
__________
The within is ................................................ this the...........................................
Day of ..........................................................................................................., 2025.
.............................................................
Governor