Does Kentucky Accept Online Concealed Carry Classes?

UPDATE: The below article was written prior to Jan 1st, 2021 and at the time it was written one could take an online class and apply for a Virginia non-resident permit. That is NO LONGER TRUE. This article is outdated and the reader should note that Virginia no longer accepts online training. The main takeaway? In Kentucky you need to take an in-person class to qualify for the permit and there is no longer any loophole to get around that.

There has been an influx of companies that have appeared on the internet offering online video only concealed carry classes. In addition to our own in-person training network and online store, we also offer an online concealed carry course.

If you have been researching trying to understand the implications for Kentucky and online concealed carry training, this article will serve as a guide to navigating all the state specific laws and will help clarify what you need to know.

The first thing to be clear on is that ONLY Virginia will issue a permit to any person in the country, who has taken an online only concealed carry class, and mails paperwork in remotely. None of the other 49 states will do that. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there are no implications for Kentucky as we will clarify below.

The Online concealed carry classes have become popular nationwide because the Virginia Non-Resident permit is valid in 29 states of the country. So, while an online only class only qualifies a person to get a Virginia permit, that Virginia permit is still valuable in 28 states other than Virginia.

Now, the map below represents the states that honor the Virginia Non-Resident permit and while Kentucky is green, this can be deceiving. At first you might assume that because Kentucky honors the Virginia Non-Resident permit that you could obtain that permit instead of our Kentucky permit but you in fact cannot.

This is because Kentucky requires that residents of our state MUST obtain a Kentucky permit in order to carry concealed here. So, if you were hoping you could take an online concealed carry class and forego taking a local in-person class to get the Kentucky permit I’m afraid that won’t work. Because you live in Kentucky, you need to obtain the local permit.

Regardless of all that it is also worth noting, (independent of the Virginia Non-Resident permit being an option for the local carrying of a concealed firearm or not) a lot of people choose to obtain it in addition to a local permit since it can also expand the number of states where you can legally carry.

Specific to Kentucky, if you have our local permit and also choose to take an online concealed carry class and obtain a Virginia Concealed Carry permit then you would add New Mexico to the list of states where you can now carry. That is the only state that does not honor the Kentucky permit but does honor the Virginia Non-Resident Permit.

So if you are interested in expanding your reciprocity via the Virginia Non-Resident permit you can learn more about our Online Concealed Carry Class here.