By Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
An insightful article by Sandra Tan in the Aug. 5 Buffalo News painted a revealing, fact-filled picture of concealed carry license numbers in Erie County, NY, which has a population of about 910,000, and those numbers are trending upward.
Some 90,000 pistol licenses may not seem like a huge figure to some of our readers, but consider that Erie is just one of 62 counties in the state, and that when the panic was on at the beginning of this year because of the required recertification of pistol licenses, various sources were quoting over 1 million handgun licenses statewide. Bear in mind that until the five-year recertification requirement imposed by the SAFE Act most licenses in the state were issued as lifetime licenses—“Good until revoked”—except in Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and the five counties that comprise New York City.
Not all of those licenses, especially in the eight counties just mentioned, are issued for personal protection. Many, especially in the cited eight counties mentioned are household or business premise-only or restricted to target shooting and/or hunting.
Besides revealing that about 10 percent of Erie County’s entire population is already licensed to carry a concealed pistol or revolver, with or without restrictions, the News article said that there were some significant connections between presidential campaigns and license applications. In addition, the newspaper said that other events, including much publicized mass shootings or attacks on celebrities, also fuel a demand for state handgun licenses.
It may not surprise TGM readers that a record number of license applications—3,873—were received during the 2016 presidential election campaign, when many people believed that Hillary Clinton was likely to win. And she had made it plain that new restrictions on gun ownership were part of her platform.
Other events, such as passage of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s SAFE Act gun control initiative in 2013 also caused a significant spike in applications. That year, the Erie County Clerk’s Office, which processes the applications which are approved or denied by judges, reported that there were 2,712 applications filed. Compare that to the 760 residents who applied for handgun permits the year before President Obama was elected.
Just to round out the data, the News reported that there were 1,531 new applications in 2009, the year after Obama was elected. Figures are not available for the current year, but the numbers were still up in 2017 after President Trump took office, but not at the Clinton level. There were 2,513 applications during 2017.
Just a couple of year ago, there was a logjam on handling license applications with many people waiting as long as 18 months for the issuance of a handgun permit.
Which brings up more current trending issues: reforms and staffing changes in the county licensing process have made applications easier to file, although it still takes about nine months from application to issuance, including fingerprinting, a check on state and federal criminal background data bases, interviews with character witnesses, and interviews with a judge.
Police staffing for investigations has also been increased.
With all of that lengthy process more people still are electing to apply for the licenses, with a significant uptick in the number of women applicants, according to the newspaper’s quote from Erie County Clerk Michael Kearns.
Kearns has tried to streamline the process with a restructuring of the Clerk’s main office in downtown Buffalo and the addition of a satellite office in the suburb of Elma, which is already in operation, and another slated for Cheektowaga. He has also added credit card processing, and has instituted an appointment process as a convenience.
Under New York law, each and every pistol or revolver is registered, first to the dealer’s license and then to the individual gun owner’s license.
The Buffalo News reported than many of the individual licensees have multiple handguns on their permits and seem to be adding more. The paper reported that the Erie County Clerk’s office registered 8,672 pistols in 2017, compared to less than 3,000 a decade earlier, another indication that there are not only more people licensed to carry, but they own multiple handguns for a number of personal reasons.
