Gun Permit Applications Backing Up, Process More Difficult in Cities Defunding Police
“Firearm-related background checks reached 3.9 million nationally in June, the most since the tracking system was created more than two decades ago”
Gun sales are way up, across the country, for obvious reasons. The numbers began to rise with the Coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, and only grew as riots began in multiple cities at the beginning of the summer.
Now imagine being someone who lives in one of these riot torn cities, where your Democrat leaders are trying to defund the police, and learning that it’s going to be difficult to arm yourself.
As crazy as it sounds, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Tyler Olson reports at FOX News:
In ‘defund police’ cities with rising crime, getting a gun no easy task: ‘Near-impossible to get a permit’
As crime spikes in many cities and calls to defund the police rise, so too has the demand for guns — yet while these trends widely are seen as related, it remains difficult or time-consuming in many of these same places to get a firearm.
Firearm-related background checks reached 3.9 million nationally in June, the most since the tracking system was created more than two decades ago, a sign of booming sales. The FBI conducted 3.6 million such checks in July, the second-highest number on record. Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gunmakers, said the confluence of calls to defund police along with civil unrest and various crime connected to that is “unquestionably … why this trend is increasing.”
Aside from unrest in places like Seattle, chaos erupted overnight in Chicago in response to a police-involved shooting.
But in some of the Democrat-dominated cities taking steps to defund or curtail their police departments, worrying many that response times may be increased as resources are stretched thin, getting a gun for personal protection is no easy task.
Reasons include tight gun laws, pandemic-related backlogs and even a dearth of stores.
To say that demand is going way up is not an exaggeration.
According to WCBS News Radio 880, permit applications in New York City are up by 90 percent:
NYPD Sees 90% Increase In Applications For Gun Permits
More New York City residents have decided to arm themselves, according to a Spectrum News report.
According to the report, the NYPD has received an influx of gun permits in 2020, up 90% from 2019.
It seems that the trend in purchasing guns was triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and then the social unrest following the police brutality death of George Floyd in Minnesota.
The NYPD says it received around 3,900 applications for handguns by the end of June compared to 2,012 applications last year.
One resident told Spectrum that they applied for a gun permit in fear that the NYPD will not protect his neighborhood amid police reforms.
“I’m not a gun person. That’s not something I’ve ever wanted in my life, but I think now it’s time to think that you have to protect yourself by any means necessary in your home,” he told the news outlet.
In Allegheny County, PA, concealed carry permit applicants are being told they may have to wait until November.
Andy Sheehan reports at CBS News in Pittsburgh:
Applications For Concealed Carry Permits Backed Up To November In Allegheny County
At Allegheny County Courthouse, it seems that just about everyone is suddenly applying for a permit to carry a concealed weapon. But if you’d like one, there’s some bad news. The earliest you can get one is November.
Amanda Seath and her daughter Coraline made the trip from Turtle Creek to the Allegheny County Courthouse for one purpose — to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun. They’re not alone. More than 6,000 people are waiting to do the same.
The sheriff’s office is scheduling applicants online in five minutes intervals, but even in processing 84 permits a day, they’re now backed up into November. Sheriff William Mullen attributes the surge in applications to civil unrest and uncertain times.
“People (are) afraid of what’s going on in the country. The unlawfulness. The violent protests. They’re just really worked up about that,” said Sheriff Mullen.
“It makes you think. Yeah. About unrest. You don’t know where anybody’s going any more. You don’t know if it’s safe,” Keith Vangura of Pleasant Hills said.
Political leaders cannot have it both ways.
You can’t tell the police to stand aside as people riot, and then restrict the ability of law abiding people to protect themselves, their families, their homes, and their businesses.
If the police are not allowed to protect the people, the people will protect themselves.
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Comments
It’s all a bit like watching tectonic shifts, albeit this time between the “plates” of Progressive utopianism and reality.
As a resident of reality for, well, my entire life (military brat + history buff will do that to you), I do get some satisfaction at watching the “reality slap” hitting many Progressives.
But I also recognize that others of the Collectivist ilk will just double-down.
Things in this country are going to get uglier before they get better. We’re in an existential struggle in which there can only be one prevailing: our Constitutional Republic or some form of Collectivism (most likely a global form of Corporatist Fascism).
Corporate fascism…. Rollerball. Except that dystopian sci-fi underestimates reality. Oh, there may be “global governments” but puppets to the corporations. Google Globalism.
Don’t forget Running Man, same idea
Great movie. Saw it in a theater full of fellow GIs. Most of us stayed for the second showing. Everyone was shouting “Jonathan! Jonathan!” at the end the second time around. John Houseman was not amused.
Wow, that sergeant that hands out concealed carry permits in NYFC must be doing cartwheels down the hall. With a $5,000 bribe per permit as the going price and 4,000 applicants, he is going to be a RICHE’, RICHE’ man. I wonder if the communist mayor gets a cut for creating the situation.
Check out New Germany. The anti-gun NJ Governor declared the staff that handed out permission slips to buy handguns “non-essential”. Viola, an infinite waiting period. And of course the NJ law makes no mention of any sort of “emergency”. So, your rights await the government permission that a politician or bureaucrat decides you can exercise.
Can they buy a formerly owned rifle without a background check there? I can.
And for the criminals, yes I value my belongings more than your life, apparently you also value my belongings more than you value your life. Wake up, go to someone else’s home. That lock on my door is to protect you not me.
Should have armed themselves long ago.
Should have armed themselves long ago. Had guns in the home since I can’t remember when. Only shot myself once.?
You can’t tell the police to stand aside as people riot, and then restrict the ability of law abiding people to protect themselves, their families, their homes, and their businesses.
As a great philosopher once said: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
If the police are defunded and they no longer enforce the laws, just go out and get a gun, and ignore the licensing regulations. Liberals would gladly let you have a gun, if they can just get rid of the police in exchange, right?
Or, do they believe that not ALL law enforcement is bad?
Of course. Law enforcement against gun owners is essential. It’s only law enforcement against looters and murderers that’s bad and needs to be stopped.
And race; they need to know what race you are before they enforce any laws against you.
Ze polees. Zey ah chust followink ordehrz, mein herren und damen!
This is a feature, not a bug. Here’s our feature in response:
An ordinance which… makes the peaceful enjoyment of freedoms which the Constitution guarantees contingent upon the uncontrolled will of an official — as by requiring a permit or license which may be granted or withheld in the discretion of such official — is an unconstitutional censorship or prior restraint upon the enjoyment of those freedoms. And our decisions have made clear that a person faced with such an unconstitutional licensing law may ignore it and engage with impunity in the exercise of the right of free expression for which the law purports to require a license.
–SHUTTLESWORTH v. CITY OF BIRMINGHAM AL
In many cases these people voted for the pols who promised them these gun control laws. In places where these laws have existed for as much as a century or more (e.g. NY Sullivan Law) these people have generally had the opportunity to vote in pols who would rescind these laws and failed to elect them.
Now these people are hoist on their own petard of Leftist voting habits. Will they learn the lesson of their previous mistakes? Assuming this too shall pass, not really likely.
not really likely.
Sadly, so very true.
“Damn right we are coming for your guns” than we will defend the police so you have no security. This is an attack of the middle class.
I think you mean an attack on the middle class. 🙂
An attack of the middle class would be more akin to “going Galt.”
Well, at root Progressivism is a from of Collectivism.
Collectivism has four main branches: Communism; Fascism; Socialism and Progressivism.
Collectivists historically (and still) hate the middle-class — the bourgeoisie — because it represents a generally contented group of beneficiaries of the free-market Capitalist system.
Over recent decades we’ve been morphing from free-market Capitalism to a crony / corporatist / globalist model. The Progressives want this to continue.
Their ultimate goal is global masses rendered “sustainable” in a sort of high-tech feudalism (social scoring anyone?); a nomenklatura class of bureaucrats to administer the “sustainable” economy; and a small elite lording over it all.
Defund, not defend. The last thing they want to do is defend the police. The Seattle Chief of Police did that, they cut her staffing by 100 positions, denigrated the Officers and cut her salary by 40% and that is cutting the woman of color’s salary 40% less than the previous white male Chief.
The earliest you can get one is November.
One of the good bits (at least currently; I don’t know about the changes happening 1 Jan 2021) about VA CCW permits is that if the approval doesn’t happen by the deadline (IIRC, 45 days) you are authorized to carry until it’s either approved or disapproved. “Fail permissive” is the right way to go (it assumes innocent until proven guilty!).
Is that for approvals or renewals?
Even in the liberal wasteland of Massachusetts, if one has a license due for renewal, the old license remains valid past its expiration date as long as the application for renewal has been submitted. So Boston can’t veto renewals by just dragging its feet.
New licenses still take bloody forever.
It’s for initial issues. The assumption is the same as the one for background checks – if they can’t tell you “no” then they have to (at least temporarily) say “yes”.
This is just the usual commie bait and switch. They put “fail permissive” in the law to encourage you not to oppose it, then once passed, they remove it as a “loophole” because it is “too burdensome on overstressed government resources.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/06/gun-dealers-urged-defer-fbi-gun-sales-soar-amid-coronavirus/3084281001/
“Thousands of U.S. gun dealers were urged not to finalize surging weapons’ sales until the FBI completes background checks even if the review process extends beyond the mandated three business days…
“Larry Keane, general counsel for the firearm industry’s association, said the advisory was issued in March after dealers in more than two dozen states received notices from the bureau indicating that background reviews would not be completed in time, in some cases for up to 28 days.
“There is no question that the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) is overwhelmed by the volume,” Keane said, referring to record sales during the past two months in the midst of the pandemic.”
What a con — write a bill to deny your rights, give themselves a deadline, then wail that they can’t possibly achieve the deadline THEY wrote into their own law.
Similarly the California gun “waiting period” began with one day for handguns in 1923, the California Legislature increased the handgun waiting period from one to three days in 1955, to five days in 1965, and to 15 days in 1975. None of it helped, of course, so every time that was pointed out they just increased the wait because it “clearly wasn’t long enough.”
I personally look at this is up to 3 million new Republican voters. The realization is you just can’t vote in Trump for president in order to protect yourself and have the police protect you. You now have to vote for Republicans on local elections as well.
I agree, a decade or two of timeout is the only thing which might change what has happened to Democrats.
They’ll do with guns what they did with healthy citrus trees in FL a few decades ago with the citrus canker outbreak. They’ll declare some state of emergency & send crews/officers around to take your guns; just like they destroyed countless healthy citrus trees simply because they were within a certain (wide) radius of infected trees.
The courts are still dealing with the fallout from that & the State has yet to fully compensate people for what happened, but that doesn’t matter. The law is becoming irrelevant. The damage was done & they got what they wanted.
The law is being swallowed whole by politics, but now it’s endangering our lives & safety.
If they can change bathrooms & gender, they can change anything.
Trees can’t shoot back. People can.
Indeed. Our self-anointed moral and intellectual betters have zero interest in disarming the gangbangers and Antifa/BLM brownshirts. In the twisted minds of blue enclave leaders the more murder and mayhem that happens the better, since it can be used to justify putting the government’s jackboots on the necks of the Deplorables and crushing them.
Why are they bothering? Doesn’t everybody know that NY doesn’t issue permits to the unconnected?
“You can’t tell the police to stand aside as people riot, and then restrict the ability of law abiding people to protect themselves, their families, their homes, and their businesses.”
That is exactly what that are doing. And they will continue to get away with it because (1) the denizens of these deep-blue hellholes have voted for this garbage for decades, and (2) thanks to voting by mail, blocking voter ID laws, ballot harvesting, and other firms of voting fraud it is near impossible to remove the Communist mandarins who run these failed blue enclaves.
How shocking it must be for people to find out that buying a gun isn’t as easy as the media has led them to believe.
People as stupid and stupidity is its own reward.
First, the 2nd Amendment to unrestricted weapons ownership and possession is a form of insurance. In order to be effective, it has to be obtained BEFORE you need it, not when or after you need it. Just as fire insurance doesn’t do you any good if you attempt to buy it while your house is on fire, it is a little futile to run into a gun shop to buy again, with the mob at your heels.
Second, this is what happens when you allow the government to unconstitutionally rewrite parts of the Constitution. For 150 years, the governments of this country ignored the fact that the 2nd Amendmment applied to the states, as well as the federal government. And, for nearly 100 years, the courts have been rewriting the 2nd Amendment to allow the governments to unconstitutionally restrict the ownership and and possession of weapons, including firearms.
So, guess what? People suddenly find that they can no longer exercise their enumerated freedom to own or carry a firearm in public. Surprise, surprise, surprise. WTH do people think the Founders included the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights, anyway?
Maybe,…just maybe this will enlighten people to the perils of electing Democrats
I’m glad I live in Texas. 15 years in Austin and I never felt like I needed a firearm. Walked into GT Distributors a couple of months, gave them my DD-214, and walked out with a Glock 30 minutes later with the blue label pricing. I’ve had to wait longer for breakfast tacos.
Dang! You’ve had to wait more than 30 minutes for breakfast tacos?! Wow. (Even on the busiest days in the Reese bowling alley, breakfast never took more than 20 minutes from in line to food in hand.)
Why did you give them a DD-214? Federal law only requires government issued picture ID, though a combination of documents can be used (e.g. Passport for name and picture, Voter Registration for address). Simplest is the Driver’s License which has all the info necessary to complete the ID requirement for the 4473 and NICS check. Better yet is a License To Carry where the complete background check takes the place of the NICS check.
Another good reason to oppose background checks of all kinds. If the government is the gatekeeper, they can always lock the gate. It’s been done by accident with police defunding, but it was done on purpose during the stay-at-home orders of some states (e.g., NJ) that shut down the states’ background check systems. All that a Democrat administration and Congress need do is defund the NICS and *POOF* guns can’t be purchased.
Is there not a legal maxim that says “The law can’t require the impossible”? When it becomes impossible to get a background check, wouldn’t laws requiring them run afoul of this maxim? What would be the consequence for a firearms dealer who continued to sell guns? (Remember, this is a person already authorized by government to sell guns. Can the government then say, “You must stop selling the guns we’ve authorized you to sell, because WE have made it impossible for you to comply with OUR regulations”? Certainly, this must be constitutionally unsound.)
“”“You must stop selling the guns we’ve authorized you to sell, because WE have made it impossible for you to comply with OUR regulations”?””
They haven’t had any problem, morally or practically, with doing that to bar owners.
That’s true. But that doesn’t make either scenario constitutional or legal. Government commits unconstitutional and illegal actions all the time.
Except there is built-in to the NICS requirement, that if an answer isn’t forthcoming within 72 hours (IIRC) the sale is authorized. So, if they shut it down, everyone gets a gun within 3 days.
Now, some state laws might try and restrict that, and I don’t know if that has been upheld or not. And states with things like Firearms Owner IDs where you have to get a permit just to own a firearm will obviously be “shutting down” gun buys – and they should maybe be challenged on that basis.
But that’s a three-day wait for a reply to a NICS check. If the FFL is required to run the check and can’t, that’s a different story.
And the NICS has gone down (e.g., it went down for four days at the time of the Million Mom March). When that happens, I’m fairly certain FFLs have told people “Come back later. NICS is down and I can’t run the check.” During the above mentioned shutdown, I’m also fairly certain that no FFL, on the first day of the shutdown, told customers to come back in three days (at which time NICS would have still been down) to pick up their guns.
Yes, that’s the other great commie bait and switch con. Write a guarantee into the law that no licensed merchant will dare allow you to exercise for fear of losing his license in retaliation.
Timely article for me. Just bought my first handgun today – had to make an appointment days ago (all local gun stores require appointments now.) Took the test, shopped for and selected a handgun and in 3 – 6 months it should be here! Then I have to wait 10 days before picking it up, to, you know, cool off from my impulsive buy.
The dealer I went to said guns are just flying out of his store and 90% of his business right now are first time buyers (like me.) This is in the very liberal SF Bay Area.
Did you pass the “test” to qualify for a voters permit? What? There is no mandated “course” required before you can VOTE? Why is that? Seems like that would be more important than being able to buy a gun.
Residents in these Blue states, counties and cities thought they would be safe if those “Assault weapons” were banned. Criminals obey laws, right? Whoops!
Better late than never. A proper citizen would have arms, ammunition, and training at the ready for the nearly inevitable progressive lack of order.