Virginia Code 52-25.1: Reporting and return of firearms confiscated or recovered by law-enforcement agencies
A. Whenever a law-enforcement agency confiscates a firearm in connection with a criminal investigation or otherwise recovers a firearm, such agency shall immediately take all appropriate steps to identify and trace the history of such firearm.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 52-25.1
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
B. The Superintendent shall establish a procedure within the Department of State Police to obtain information regarding all firearms seized, forfeited, found, or otherwise coming into the possession of any state or local law-enforcement agency of the Commonwealth. All law-enforcement agencies of the Commonwealth and of political subdivisions of the Commonwealth shall share with other Virginia law-enforcement agencies all information regarding firearms seized, forfeited, found, or otherwise coming into the agency’s possession that are believed to have been used in the commission of a crime and shall enter such information into a firearms tracing system maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Superintendent shall adopt regulations prescribing the method for reporting this information and the time and manner of submission of the information to a firearms tracing system maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice.
C. Except as provided in § 19.2-386.29, whenever a firearm is identified as stolen, the law-enforcement agency shall return such firearm to the rightful owner thereof, if known, provided the owner is not prohibited from possessing the firearm and the agency does not need to retain the firearm as evidence in a criminal prosecution.