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It seemed a major victory last month for gun safety advocates: Virginia’s attorney general announced that the state would stop recognizing concealed-carry gun permits from states with firearm standards rated inferior and unsafe. But it was overturned this week by a compromise between Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, and Republican legislative leaders in a surprise deal presented as a public safety advance but denounced as a sellout by angry families of Virginia shooting victims and gun control advocacy groups.

The proposed compromise would reaffirm concealed-carry reciprocity with 25 states that Mark Herring, the state’s Democratic attorney general, planned to end Feb. 1 because audits concluded those states granted handgun permits to people who would be disqualified under Virginia standards. Mr. Herring’s action infuriated the gun lobby.

Governor McAuliffe’s move to reverse it was counter-balanced with what he said were two advances in gun safety law. One would post state police at gun shows to be on hand for voluntary background checks if dealers requested — not mandatory checks, as President Obama and other gun control advocates urge as the only way to close this gun-show loophole. The other measure allows the state to confiscate the guns of any abuser cited in a domestic-violence protection order. Abusers currently are barred from purchasing new guns but not from possessing older weapons.

The National Rifle Association’s chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, immediately blessed the deal as “a bipartisan package that will benefit Virginia citizens.” But John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a national advocacy group, denounced the compromise as “a gift to the gun lobby” in its campaign to make the concealed carrying of handguns by ordinary citizens a universal fact of American life. His group released a letter to Governor McAuliffe, in which 16 citizens who were caught in gun sprees or lost family members bitterly denounced the deal as “a dangerous rollback that puts public safety at risk.”

“You’ve comforted us and our families in some of our darkest moments,” they told Mr. McAuliffe, noting he had campaigned on the issue and built a strong record on gun safety while in office. But they accused him of “caving to the gun lobby” on concealed carry and forcing Virginia to accept the riskier safety standards of other states. They urged a reversal, but legislative enactment was expected.