Ironic that you should bring up this topic. My wife and I are moving to Berkeley County, specifically to Inwood, WV, the first week of January. We're not quitting on VA per se, but neither of us is from VA (the military brought us here) and we're leaving for WV because of our jobs. We're leaving Stafford, VA, which we both like very much, but I'm still amazed how much farther our money goes with regards to real estate in WV than it does in NoVA. We're cutting our mortgage payment literally in half, paying far less in taxes, and we're getting a house that's not much smaller and on nearly the same acreage.PhantomPhixer wrote:I'll admit that for my whole life, I've had my share of laughs and poking fun at West Virginia. Still, living just a stone's throw from the border, there has always been a part of me that envied the natural beauty and the seeming lack of budget and regulation.
Now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, what can you folks tell me about our neighbor to the West?
Nature-wise, I would put WV high on the scale. Anything along the Appalachian Mtns is beautiful country. I grew up in the Ozarks and always thought it was Heaven on Earth. That's the same feeling I get out in WV.
Politically speaking, WV is much akin to Virginia. The senators and governor are both Democrats. Two of the three House representatives and the state attorney general are Republican, though. WV has consistently voted Republican in presidential elections since 2000. The senators are Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller. I'm no fan of Manchin because he brought up the anti-gun bill following Sandy Hook, however as Democrats go he is far more center-leaning than most. He's what I would term a "conservative Democrat" overall. If you do an Internet search, you'll see that Manchin isn't very popular with far left liberal groups for that very reason. Personally, I like the guy as far as Dems go.
The bad news is that, conversely, Jay Rockefeller, is pretty liberal. The good news is that Rockefeller is retiring after 30 years in Congress, and WV as a whole is becoming more red much to the chagrin of liberal newspapers like the Huffington Post. During the last elections, Republicans picked up three seats in the state senate and eleven in the state house, but are still the minority in both. It is predicted that the Republican challenger for Rockefeller's seat in the Senate will be Shelley Capito, who is currently one of the two Republican reps that WV has in the House of Representatives.
Second Amendment-wise, it's quite similar to Virginia in many ways. WV is a shall-issue state, and their laws concerning right-to-carry and concealed carry are no different than Virginia's. West Virginia is a traditional open carry state but there are some grandfathered local open carry bans not preempted by state law, such as the City of Charleston. There is complete state preemption of all firearms laws, but any local laws passed before preemption remain in effect. The costs for a concealed carry permit is more ($75 to apply + another $15 if approved) and the time period the county has to respond to an application is the same as Virginia, i.e. 45 days. The CC permit looks more like a driver's license and is valid for 5 years.
Right now, WV is very attractive to my wife and I. If that changes in the years to come, we'll move again, I'm sure. Best of luck!
