CHP renewal question

I am attempting to renew my CHP but am having a difficult time. The clerk did not accept my renewal application because the background check portion had not been completed. The clerk claims that their standard operating procedure is for the applicant to have that portion of the application completed at the Sheriff's office first and then sent to the court. I contend that it is the court's responsibility to forward the application to the Sheriff's office since 18.2-308.04.B states that "Upon receipt of the completed application, the court shall consult with either the sheriff or police department of the county or city and receive a report from the Central Criminal Records Exchange."

Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I am active duty military and stationed far away from my permanent county of residence. I can't just take time off to go to the Sheriff's office in the middle of the week.

So what say you? Am I right by saying that it is the court's responsibility to contact the Sheriff's Office? Or is the court operating appropriately by requiring me to obtain the background check first?

Any information you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

You are correct. In Virginia you can mail the renewal application for CHP. Background check is their responsibility.

Sent from my PantechP9070 using Tapatalk

I'm sure others will weigh in here. I would suggest you follow the letter of the law regarding the mail-in application. May be helpful to include a print out of the portion of the law.

If they send it back, then contact VCDL.

TFred

Have the application notorized and mail it in together with a photocopy of your current permit if it is a renewal.

Expect you will receive your new CHP in due order.

The more I read, the more I realize I am correct. § 18.2-308.04 gives directions on how to process the application and it states that "Upon receipt of the completed application, the court shall consult with either the sheriff or police department of the county or city and receive a report from the Central Criminal Records Exchange" (emphasis mine). Furthermore, § 18.2-308.02(E) defines a completed application as an application in which “all information required to be furnished by the applicant, including the fee for a concealed handgun permit … is delivered to and received by the clerk of court before or [in conjunction with] the conduct of a state or national criminal history records check.”

So, from here, my intentions are to return the application as is to the clerk of the court with a cover letter stating that my application is complete and that it is the court's responsibility to consult with the sheriff. Unfortunately, although I am correct, I anticipate more friction from the court. In my brief interaction with the clerk's office, they don't appear to be all that intelligent.

Which Clerk's office is this?

Inquiring minds want to know?

Grapeshot said:

Which Clerk's office is this?

Inquiring minds want to know?

Click to expand...

All of them.

Faded said:

The more I read, the more I realize I am correct. § 18.2-308.04 gives directions on how to process the application and it states that "Upon receipt of the completed application, the court shall consult with either the sheriff or police department of the county or city and receive a report from the Central Criminal Records Exchange" (emphasis mine). Furthermore, § 18.2-308.02(E) defines a completed application as an application in which “all information required to be furnished by the applicant, including the fee for a concealed handgun permit … is delivered to and received by the clerk of court before or [in conjunction with] the conduct of a state or national criminal history records check.”

So, from here, my intentions are to return the application as is to the clerk of the court with a cover letter stating that my application is complete and that it is the court's responsibility to consult with the sheriff. Unfortunately, although I am correct, I anticipate more friction from the court. In my brief interaction with the clerk's office, they don't appear to be all that intelligent.

Click to expand...

Be assured, your interpretation is correct. This has been run to ground here on these forums many times. The trick is how to convince an uncaring bureaucrat that you are right in a way that motivates them to do their job correctly. There are a number of approaches to that, some of which have been provided here. It's hard to tell you what you should do, as it's hard to know if the clerk's assistant's are acting out of ignorance, or spite. In any case, they do need to learn to do their job correctly, and sometimes it takes a little extra effort on the citizen's part (by not caving, etc.) to see through to that end result.

TFred

In the OP's case this ignorance, or deliberate impediment, is particularly disgusting since he is active military and apparently on deployment. He is serving more than just "clerking" I'm going to bet. Pretty disgusting and shameful on the part of the clerk.

SouthernBoy said:

In the OP's case this ignorance, or deliberate impediment, is particularly disgusting since he is active military and apparently on deployment. He is serving more than just "clerking" I'm going to bet. Pretty disgusting and shameful on the part of the clerk.

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If he is deployeed, he does not have to renew his permit until he returns stateside.

B. If a permit holder is a member of the Virginia National Guard, armed forces of the United States, or the Armed Forces Reserves of the United States, and his five-year permit expires during an active-duty military deployment outside of the permittee's county or city of residence, such permit shall remain valid for 90 days after the end date of the deployment. In order to establish proof of continued validity of the permit, such a permittee shall carry with him and display, upon request of a law-enforcement officer, a copy of the permittee's deployment orders or other documentation from the permittee's commanding officer that order the permittee to travel outside of his county or city of residence and that indicate the start and end date of such deployment.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-308.010

Furthermore, it might be good to remind the Clerk's office that their clock has already started ticking towards the 45 day default issuance date.

Grapeshot said:

Which Clerk's office is this?

Inquiring minds want to know?

Click to expand...

This is Buchanan County. I am quite certain that the impediment is due to nothing more than ignorance of the law. Regardless it is a headache.

Grapeshot said:

If he is deployeed, he does not have to renew his permit until he returns stateside.

B. If a permit holder is a member of the Virginia National Guard, armed forces of the United States, or the Armed Forces Reserves of the United States, and his five-year permit expires during an active-duty military deployment outside of the permittee's county or city of residence, such permit shall remain valid for 90 days after the end date of the deployment. In order to establish proof of continued validity of the permit, such a permittee shall carry with him and display, upon request of a law-enforcement officer, a copy of the permittee's deployment orders or other documentation from the permittee's commanding officer that order the permittee to travel outside of his county or city of residence and that indicate the start and end date of such deployment.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-308.010

Click to expand...

The only concern I have is that I am USN and don't receive "deployment orders". Deployment orders is a term that applies specifically to the USA. For me, I have received two different sets of permanent change of station orders; one to a ship overseas and a second to shore duty on the west coast. Although I hold the opinion that this satisfies the requirement quoted above, I am not willing to be a test case for an overzealous law enforcement officer or district attorney and have decided to renew my CHP so there will be no questions regarding the legality of my ability to carry concealed. If I were to be wrongfully arrested, my security clearance (and my career) would be in jeopardy even if all charges were dismissed.

If I was still on active duty...

I would try this: Go to admin/ship secretary and get the Chief/Warrant/Ens with "by direction" authority to type up and sign (by direction) on command letter head a specific 90 day letter that the law requires.

Faded said:

The only concern I have is that I am USN and don't receive "deployment orders". Deployment orders is a term that applies specifically to the USA. For me, I have received two different sets of permanent change of station orders; one to a ship overseas and a second to shore duty on the west coast. Although I hold the opinion that this satisfies the requirement quoted above, I am not willing to be a test case for an overzealous law enforcement officer or district attorney and have decided to renew my CHP so there will be no questions regarding the legality of my ability to carry concealed. If I were to be wrongfully arrested, my security clearance (and my career) would be in jeopardy even if all charges were dismissed.

Click to expand...

Actually, you do receive "deployment orders" when your ship gets underway, as your "duty station" deploys with you aboard. It's no different in other branches of the service, as those folks actually deploy with their units also. (The Unit gets orders to deploy, not the people in it.)

Your orders assigning you to the ship should be sufficient, as they are in effect until you receive new ones sending you somewhere else. As was suggested earlier, you might want to pursue the option of a letter from your XO (via personnel office) stating when you reported aboard, and that the ship was underway from when to when, bracketing your CHP expiration date.

Good luck.

NavyLCDR said:

What state do you currently have orders to? If it is Washington, it might be just as easy, or easier to get the Washington CPL. There are other benefits to getting the same state's permit that you have orders to such as it exempts you from the Federal 1000' Gun Free School Zone Act (which an out-of-state permit does not), and it might exempt you from some firearms purchasing laws such as the 5 day handgun waiting period in Washington state.

If you are stationed in California, then you are just SOL - plus your VA CHL is not recognized by California anyway (if I remember correctly).



In the Navy - and as far as I know, the other services as well - being deployed is entirely different than permanent change of station orders. Being deployed means an assignment away from the permanent duty station under something longer than TAD or TDY (temporary travel) orders.

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Newport, RI is my ultimate duty station, but I am on a quite long period of TAD in Virginia for training. I know that I'm SOL in Rhode Island when I get there, but was hoping that I could get my permit renewal in time to carry concealed while in Virginia.

To make matters even worse, I'm slated to a ship in San Diego after my training in Rhode Island. At least California is moving in the direction of becoming a "shall issue" state. I'm hopeful that California will go that route before or during my time there.

Regarding the deployment orders vs. PCS orders; I have defaulted to believing that my CHP is expired and the extension doesn't apply to me. My last deployment ended when I transferred from the GW in the FDNF a couple years ago. After that I had a nice, cushy shore duty job wearing civilian clothes nearly every day with nary a ship to be seen. Although there may be some wiggle room in arguing the case of deployment orders vs. PCS, I have decided to take the safest course of action (open carry while in VA) until my CHP renewal is approved.

As far as an update to the original post... I contacted the VCDL and they told me they would give the court a call in order to sort it out. I haven't heard back from the VCDL, but in the meantime I have written a cover letter to send along with my renewal application which basically states 1) my application is complete, 2) it's the court's responsibility to consult with the sheriff's office, 3) I am not obligated to send any information beyond that which is stated on the application (since they asked for a copy of my military ID for some reason), and 4) you have 45 days to issue the permit or else my application becomes a de facto permit.

It is unfortunate that this has to be so difficult.

Update

Not long after the court initially refused to accept my application, I returned my renewal application with a letter informing the court that a) the application was complete in accordance with 18.2-308.02(E) and b) it is the court's responsibility to consult with law enforcement in accordance with 18.2-308.04(B). Unfortunately, the clerk either didn't read my letter or can't understand the plainly worded law. I say this because my application was returned again because it was "incomplete" due to missing background check.

I just sent an email to VCDL leadership to see if they are willing to help out. Hopefully I hear something from them soon. I would like to get this situation cleared up as soon as possible.

Faded said:

Not long after the court initially refused to accept my application, I returned my renewal application with a letter informing the court that a) the application was complete in accordance with 18.2-308.02(E) and b) it is the court's responsibility to consult with law enforcement in accordance with 18.2-308.04(B). Unfortunately, the clerk either didn't read my letter or can't understand the plainly worded law. I say this because my application was returned again because it was "incomplete" due to missing background check.

I just sent an email to VCDL leadership to see if they are willing to help out. Hopefully I hear something from them soon. I would like to get this situation cleared up as soon as possible.

Click to expand...

Doubt that PVC was able to make contact with the clerk before close of business, so would be Monday at the earliest.

BTW - your understanding of the statute is correct.

BUT if you are still deployed as I understand that you are, then you do not have to renew your permit now:

If a permit holder is a member of the Virginia National Guard, Armed Forces of the United States, or the Armed Forces reserves of the United States, and his five-year permit expires during an active-duty military deployment outside of the permittee's county or city of residence, such permit shall remain valid for 90 days after the end date of the deployment. In order to establish proof of continued validity of the permit, such a permittee shall carry with him and display, upon request of a law-enforcement officer, a copy of the permittee's deployment orders or other documentation from the permittee's commanding officer that order the permittee to travel outside of his county or city of residence and that indicate the start and end date of such deployment.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-308.010