by Is a right denied has been attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Given Dr. King was denied a carry permit in Alabama, this story from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina is a prime example of what he spoke about.
Local Charlotte TV station WBTV did an investigative report on how long it takes to get a North Carolina Concealed Handgun Permit in that county. If you took a class now, you will get your shall-issue permit in about a year.
By contrast, in surrounding counties such as Gaston and Union, you would receive your permit is about 90 days.
From WBTV:
“If you’re in Mecklenburg County, expect it to be about a year from the time you take the class, get an appointment to start your application and then the application will be processed,” Cranston said.
Records received by WBTV from the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office show that process is taking an incredibly long time.
“It’s not that the Sheriff’s Office is making it longer than it is cut out to be. It is that the numbers have went up,” Meckelnburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden said.
Since January of 2020 there have been more 13,000 new applications and nearly 5,000 renewals. About 42 percent of those have been completed.
McFadden says he’s hiring additional staff and has authorized thousands of hours of overtime to help catch up. WBTV asked him what else he could be doing to get through applications more quickly.
“We are going to hire more staff. But as we hire, the demand is still there,” McFadden said.
“Every application that we work on that is, that is an application that we’re catching up on. We’re trying to catch up, but the volume is still coming in,” McFadden said.
Right now, the sheriff’s office is currently processing applications from December and the next appointment to get fingerprinted isn’t until October of this year.
The process is supposed to take just 90 days and under state law the sheriff’s office is supposed to notify applicants whether their permit will be approved or denied in 14 days.
Follow the this link to see the video of the sheriff’s interview. He has poor mouthing down to an art form.
I have no knowledge of any pending lawsuits given he is in violation of state law. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more are on the horizon.
If we assume he is making a good faith effort, what is the solution? If he is trying to hire people to process but can’t bring them on and train them fast enough, what remedy would be sufficient?
I’m not saying he is as I know little to nothing about local politics there, but just wondering. The remedy to NICS check not being processed is supposed to be “gun dealer can give you your gun anyway”, although if you buy it from a big box store it won’t happen. What happens here?
Are our friends at SAF & FPC aware of this?
I think something is in the works.