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http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3961059.html
Gun owners flocking to get permits to carry in public
One month since the onset of Minnesota's liberalized handgun law, more than 4,000 people have applied for permits to carry firearms in public, and so far almost all are getting them.
The number of would-be gun-toters lining up for permits in 4 1/2 weeks equals a third of the total who were licensed in all of 2002 under a more restrictive system. Most of the increase is coming in the Twin Cities area's five biggest counties, where more than 3,000 permit applications have been filed and 1,283 permits have been issued.
In all of last year, authorities granted only 1,400 permits in those five counties: Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington.
Because applications keep coming in -- 65 to 80 a day in the five big counties -- and officials are still processing most of them, the figures compiled Friday from a state database and a Star Tribune survey of sheriffs' offices give only a fleeting glimpse of the new law's impact. But several trends have emerged:
• Only about 40 applicants statewide have been rejected because of criminal or mental health records, inadequate training or, in a few cases, because a sheriff judged them a danger to themselves or others. With nearly 2,000 permits issued statewide, the denial rate is about 2 percent.
• A steady stream of applicants is expected for months to come, especially in the Twin Cities area, because required handgun training classes are full, sheriffs say. But overall the response appears to be falling short of a legislative projection that 50,000 permits would be issued in the law's first year.
• While permit applications have soared in the metro area, the numbers have fallen sharply in many places outstate. Four northern counties (Beltrami, Crow Wing, Itasca and Otter Tail) that had more than 4,000 permits outstanding at the end of 2002 -- 35 percent of the statewide total with 4 percent of the population -- reported only 30 applications in the last month.
"It's because of the cost," said Itasca County Sheriff Pat Medure. "We used to charge a $10 processing fee. Now it's $100, $75 for renewals, plus $50 to $140 for the training. I must have fielded over 300 calls from people unhappy about that."
'Soft, white guys'
By law, officials can't reveal the identities of those applying for or receiving handgun permits, but Dakota County Sheriff Don Gudmunson has sized them up.
"They're soft white guys," he said. "They look in the mirror and see they're out of shape and think they need a gun to protect themselves. But they're living in an area where they have nothing to fear."
In Scott County, just west of Dakota, Sheriff Dave Menden has a different appraisal. "I've talked to quite a few of them," he said. "They're damn good citizens. We have nothing to worry about from them."
Washington County Sheriff Jim Frank noted that of 283 applicants to his office, only 12 have been women. He has issued 223 permits, for the highest acceptance rate so far in the Twin Cities, but he's doing it grudgingly.
Under his stamped signature on the permits are the words "sub recuso," Latin for "under protest," he said. He disagrees with the new law, saying it has forced him to issue permits to 11 people with arrest or misdemeanor records not specified in the statute as grounds for denial.
"I think the law worked fine before," when authorities had broad discretion to deny permits, Frank said. "I think there's going to be more harm than good to come from this."
Nearly 7,000 Minnesotans have voiced agreement with that sentiment by signing petitions for repeal of the new law, said Rep. Nora Slawik, DFL-Maplewood. She, along with other legislators and local officials, will hold a repeal rally at 3:15 p.m. today in Central Park in Eagan, one of the places where permitted handguns can't be banned.
"I get petitions every day in the mail," Slawik said. "They are from all over the place, all walks of people, companies and citizens, top of the state to the bottom of the state. People are nervous."
The law gives sheriffs 30 days to act on permit applications, and many of them have used nearly all of it. Almost no permits were mailed out in the Twin Cities until last week.
"We wanted to give people and businesses the whole 30 days to understand the new law and establish policy for their property," said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher. "But we should have a 21-day turnaround going forward."
Fletcher has stuck to a policy of scheduling appointments to file handgun permit applications, although he said that with filings now down to 20 a day, "if people walked in, they'd be seen."
Anoka County, however, stopped requiring appointments when scheduling started backing up into July. "That wasn't reasonable," said sheriff's Lt. Ron Bouley. "It didn't look right."
The county hired some retired officers to speed up processing, and the backlog was quickly resolved, Bouley said. Now about 25 permit-seekers are showing up each day. "It's slowly dwindled from about 80 a day at first," he said.
Hennepin County had 222 applicants on May 28, the day the law took effect, 42 of them standing in line when the Government Center opened at 8:30 a.m. In the first two weeks, 883 applied, and it took eight staff members working full time to handle the paperwork, said Rosenn Campagnoli, spokeswoman for Sheriff Pat McGowan.
"It's an enormous change for us," she added. Already McGowan has issued 580 permits, compared with six in all of 2002. More permits than that were issued in the county last year, but under the old law, most applications in Hennepin County and other urban areas were handled by city police chiefs. Now only sheriffs have permit authority.
Inconsistencies in past
In the past, the number of handgun permits issued in different parts of the state generally reflected the opinions of local police chiefs and sheriffs on the issue of armed self-defense for citizens.
In the Twin Cities area, "it was pretty widely known that unless you needed a permit for work you weren't going to get one," said Washington County chief deputy Steve Pott.
But Itasca Sheriff Medure said he "took at face value" claims of personal safety hazards to warrant carrying handguns. He denied not one of 1,140 applications last year. In the past month, however, only five have applied, he said.
Applicants have been such "honest, law-abiding citizens" that only about a dozen permits were revoked in 28 years in Itasca County because of misconduct, Medure said. He also estimated that 95 percent of the county's permitholders never carried guns.
Gudmundson thinks he knows why.
"They're cold or hot, heavy, hard to conceal and they're downright dangerous," he said. In his 25 years as sheriff of Fillmore and Dakota counties and police chief of Lakeville, he added, he has never carried a gun off-duty.
"I've never been in a situation where I've needed it," he said. "I tell the people applying for permits that they have about as much chance of needing a gun as they do of winning the Gopher Lotto. And if that happens, they have as much chance of using it correctly as of winning the Powerball."
Gun owners flocking to get permits to carry in public
One month since the onset of Minnesota's liberalized handgun law, more than 4,000 people have applied for permits to carry firearms in public, and so far almost all are getting them.
The number of would-be gun-toters lining up for permits in 4 1/2 weeks equals a third of the total who were licensed in all of 2002 under a more restrictive system. Most of the increase is coming in the Twin Cities area's five biggest counties, where more than 3,000 permit applications have been filed and 1,283 permits have been issued.
In all of last year, authorities granted only 1,400 permits in those five counties: Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington.
Because applications keep coming in -- 65 to 80 a day in the five big counties -- and officials are still processing most of them, the figures compiled Friday from a state database and a Star Tribune survey of sheriffs' offices give only a fleeting glimpse of the new law's impact. But several trends have emerged:
• Only about 40 applicants statewide have been rejected because of criminal or mental health records, inadequate training or, in a few cases, because a sheriff judged them a danger to themselves or others. With nearly 2,000 permits issued statewide, the denial rate is about 2 percent.
• A steady stream of applicants is expected for months to come, especially in the Twin Cities area, because required handgun training classes are full, sheriffs say. But overall the response appears to be falling short of a legislative projection that 50,000 permits would be issued in the law's first year.
• While permit applications have soared in the metro area, the numbers have fallen sharply in many places outstate. Four northern counties (Beltrami, Crow Wing, Itasca and Otter Tail) that had more than 4,000 permits outstanding at the end of 2002 -- 35 percent of the statewide total with 4 percent of the population -- reported only 30 applications in the last month.
"It's because of the cost," said Itasca County Sheriff Pat Medure. "We used to charge a $10 processing fee. Now it's $100, $75 for renewals, plus $50 to $140 for the training. I must have fielded over 300 calls from people unhappy about that."
'Soft, white guys'
By law, officials can't reveal the identities of those applying for or receiving handgun permits, but Dakota County Sheriff Don Gudmunson has sized them up.
"They're soft white guys," he said. "They look in the mirror and see they're out of shape and think they need a gun to protect themselves. But they're living in an area where they have nothing to fear."
In Scott County, just west of Dakota, Sheriff Dave Menden has a different appraisal. "I've talked to quite a few of them," he said. "They're damn good citizens. We have nothing to worry about from them."
Washington County Sheriff Jim Frank noted that of 283 applicants to his office, only 12 have been women. He has issued 223 permits, for the highest acceptance rate so far in the Twin Cities, but he's doing it grudgingly.
Under his stamped signature on the permits are the words "sub recuso," Latin for "under protest," he said. He disagrees with the new law, saying it has forced him to issue permits to 11 people with arrest or misdemeanor records not specified in the statute as grounds for denial.
"I think the law worked fine before," when authorities had broad discretion to deny permits, Frank said. "I think there's going to be more harm than good to come from this."
Nearly 7,000 Minnesotans have voiced agreement with that sentiment by signing petitions for repeal of the new law, said Rep. Nora Slawik, DFL-Maplewood. She, along with other legislators and local officials, will hold a repeal rally at 3:15 p.m. today in Central Park in Eagan, one of the places where permitted handguns can't be banned.
"I get petitions every day in the mail," Slawik said. "They are from all over the place, all walks of people, companies and citizens, top of the state to the bottom of the state. People are nervous."
The law gives sheriffs 30 days to act on permit applications, and many of them have used nearly all of it. Almost no permits were mailed out in the Twin Cities until last week.
"We wanted to give people and businesses the whole 30 days to understand the new law and establish policy for their property," said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher. "But we should have a 21-day turnaround going forward."
Fletcher has stuck to a policy of scheduling appointments to file handgun permit applications, although he said that with filings now down to 20 a day, "if people walked in, they'd be seen."
Anoka County, however, stopped requiring appointments when scheduling started backing up into July. "That wasn't reasonable," said sheriff's Lt. Ron Bouley. "It didn't look right."
The county hired some retired officers to speed up processing, and the backlog was quickly resolved, Bouley said. Now about 25 permit-seekers are showing up each day. "It's slowly dwindled from about 80 a day at first," he said.
Hennepin County had 222 applicants on May 28, the day the law took effect, 42 of them standing in line when the Government Center opened at 8:30 a.m. In the first two weeks, 883 applied, and it took eight staff members working full time to handle the paperwork, said Rosenn Campagnoli, spokeswoman for Sheriff Pat McGowan.
"It's an enormous change for us," she added. Already McGowan has issued 580 permits, compared with six in all of 2002. More permits than that were issued in the county last year, but under the old law, most applications in Hennepin County and other urban areas were handled by city police chiefs. Now only sheriffs have permit authority.
Inconsistencies in past
In the past, the number of handgun permits issued in different parts of the state generally reflected the opinions of local police chiefs and sheriffs on the issue of armed self-defense for citizens.
In the Twin Cities area, "it was pretty widely known that unless you needed a permit for work you weren't going to get one," said Washington County chief deputy Steve Pott.
But Itasca Sheriff Medure said he "took at face value" claims of personal safety hazards to warrant carrying handguns. He denied not one of 1,140 applications last year. In the past month, however, only five have applied, he said.
Applicants have been such "honest, law-abiding citizens" that only about a dozen permits were revoked in 28 years in Itasca County because of misconduct, Medure said. He also estimated that 95 percent of the county's permitholders never carried guns.
Gudmundson thinks he knows why.
"They're cold or hot, heavy, hard to conceal and they're downright dangerous," he said. In his 25 years as sheriff of Fillmore and Dakota counties and police chief of Lakeville, he added, he has never carried a gun off-duty.
"I've never been in a situation where I've needed it," he said. "I tell the people applying for permits that they have about as much chance of needing a gun as they do of winning the Gopher Lotto. And if that happens, they have as much chance of using it correctly as of winning the Powerball."
