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(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
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I once tried to get a carry permit in New York.

First, I had to read 60 pages of instructions about irrelevant things like “metal knuckle knives” and “kung fu stars,” fill out a confusing 17-page form, get it notarized, and then go in person to police headquarters.

There they fingerprinted me, demanded reasons why I should be allowed to have a gun, and charged me $430.

I heard nothing from them for half a year. Then they wrote me saying that my application was “denied.”

I called to ask if I could appeal. They said I could try again if I could prove that “special need” to carry a gun. After years of confronting crooks on TV, I actually do have a special need for self-protection. I showed the cops threats on my life.

Not good enough, said the NYC permit department. They turned me down again.

Apparently, my mistake was not bribing the cops. Later it was revealed that the police in the permit department were giving out permits for money.

Scams like that thrive whenever politicians impose too many restrictions on people’s freedom. In parts of California, people got gun permits if they donated to a sheriff’s campaign.

— John Stossel in A New Case Gives the Supreme Court a Chance To Defend Gun Rights

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36 COMMENTS

  1. Rather ironic how the same Democrats who think some police and sheriff’s departments are racist are eager to let those same departments decide who can and can’t get a gun. Just imagine Black residents of Ferguson or Minneapolis having to get permission from the local PD to exercise their rights, or Latino residents of Maricopa Co.

    Somehow, these departments suddenly become champions of fairness and objectivity when it comes to gun permits.🙄

      • I mean, it’s perfectly understandable. The establishment, our oligarchal overlords, believe “there is no truth but power.”

        Anything that helps them and that they approve of is moral and good, anything that opposes them is literally Hitler.

        They’re aware of their hypocrisy.
        They just don’t care.

        • What agenda in America goes hand in hand with a noose and a swastika? Gun Control.

        • That’s exactly correct. And it’s only THEIR power they respect, not the people of the republic who allocate to them by proxy what little power they should have in the first place only by our consent.

          What I find it difficult to comprehend is that even with all this push back now mounting against tyrannical gun control for admitted confiscation and disarmament agenda and patently illegal abuse of already past unconstitutional laws they snaked in when, as usual, we weren’t looking, We the People of the Constitutionally protected REPUBLIC of America still aren’t able to hold them accountable for trying to enforce their Criminally illegal actions against the 2nd and 4th Amendments?

          This Crime is called “Deprivation of our rights under color of Law”

          The Statue is USCC 18-241-242. It’s a serious felony. But you never hear about it, obviusly because the violators of the Constitution don’t want you to know about it.

          Federal Prosecutors, however, were recently attempting to charge Derrick Chauvin–who was already convicted and sentenced for murder–for Deprivation of Floyd’s right to obtain emergency medical treatment in a crisis, under 18-241-242. Then it seemed to go away? Probably because ‘They’ didn’t want it too well known?

          But apparently, there’s no ‘qualified immunity’ for violation of Constitutional rights crime for police or agents. So how is the ATF getting away with Depriving People of their rights to have firearms without being arrested and handcuffed and dropped in holding jails without bond because of ‘a flight risk’ when they regularly violate the 2nd and 4th Amendments?

          Are we all stupid? Or just weak and lazy to demand our employee representatives start doing their jobs?

          Time to re-direct the narrative and start holding some of these police state agencies criminally accountable under the laws they largely disregard for their own communist agenda. And if we can take back the house and/or Senate next year, Get Congress to start repealing ALL gun laws or else…THEY’RE FIRED!

  3. Back in the 70s’ my father looked into getting a permit in LA. He was told he needed to take a “special” class that ran for one day and cost $2,000 (over $10,000 in current dollars).

    He was later having coffee with a member of the county board of supervisors and complained about it. He was promptly told, “Oh, that isn’t intended for people like you.” With that, he became eligible for a special waiver.

    This is why I am leery of mandatory training. It had nothing to do with training, it was just a filter. As far as the “need,” that level of need has frequently been interpreted to mean, multiple credible attempts on the person’s life that the police were not able to respond to at all. Frankly, unless the person is a fictional action hero, a person who meets those interpretations of that standard will probably not live long enough to get a permit.

    This all takes us back to it being a right only for the connected.

    • Coworker said he got a PI license specifically because it was a [relatively] easy route to getting a permit in CA. May still require having connections.

      • The standards in California make it hard to just walk in and start as a PI:

        Have at least three years (2,000 hours each year, totaling 6,000 hours) of compensated experience in investigative work;
        or
        have a law degree or completed a four-year course in police science plus two years (4,000 hours) of experience;
        or
        have an associate degree in police science, criminal law, or justice and 2 ½ years (5,000 hours) of experience. Experience must be certified by your employer and have been received while you were employed as a sworn law enforcement officer, military police officer, insurance adjuster, employee of a licensed PI or licensed repossessor, arson investigator for a public fire suppression agency, or an investigator for the public defender’s office.

        • He’s a lawyer, so presumably the shysters wrote themselves that pathway for special treatment.

  4. In my experience of may issue counties only wealthy white men get permits. And that is in uber woke and liberal CA.

    If you support gun control you’re no better than the trailer trash confederate flag flying mullet wearing good old boy.

    • No better? Far worse. That confederate flag flying redneck probably isn’t a racist and isn’t going to get anybody killed.

    • Fuck you JWM. Yankee prick. What ING said, but I have no inclination to be kind or thoughtful in my rebuttal today.

    • You just live in the wrong part of California. Up here in the north, good cause in most of the counties is “for self defense.” Siskiyou and Lassen have a heightened standard, but most qualify.

    • hmm. not seeing how peanutz, hairdoes and flagz denote gun control. trailer life pride may be misplaced (four of my seven siblings are so domiciled) but it should be respected.
      ignance ain’t limted ta good ol’ boy. i’ll consider his point of view long before finding interest in blue city folks.

    • Boston MA goes so far as to violate MA State law by having an unwritten policy to only grant unrestricted carry permits, the type needed to carry any firearm on your person, concealed or open, unless one is a doctor, lawyer, wealthy, or a licensed firearms instructor living in Boston.
      The policy is unwritten, so no lawyer will fight it in court. Boston denies the policy exists. But PD will tell people that apply that that is the official policy despite it not being written.
      Of course, paying a cash tip works.
      Every MAY ISSUE jurisdiction IS CORRUPT.

  5. In Chicago in the ’90s that money went right to the mayors office.
    You went through a Democrat alderman, you didn’t meet Daley.
    In return you got a business card signed by Richard M Daley.
    If had to show your DL and were carrying you pulled out both.
    It was also good in “most” suburbs in Cook County.
    It wasn’t cheap, you had to be in a legal high flow cash business or rich.
    John Stossel is complaining about $430, these CCL “permits” were $1000 in the ’90s.
    That would be roughly around $2000 in today’s money.

    • and every traffic ticket was a ten dollar phone call, albeit court appearance required.
      and all the precinct captains are still bookies.

      • You met your lawyer at the courthouse, it was more like $40.
        Sometimes you could pay the “fine” right to the cop who pulled you over.
        Harold Washington fired a lot of District Commanders including my uncle.
        I know he got my brother out of a bunch of serious trouble.
        He wasn’t around in the ’90s, HW had fired him.
        I do believe he had a rather enjoyable retirement.

  6. Gate keepers are gonna keep the gate however they see fit.
    Why would anyone be surprised?
    People who want gate keepers are like people who choose to live in neighborhoods ruled by associations. Sure, it’s nice for a nominal fee you can keep the weirdo down the road from stacking rusty car shells in his front yard but sooner or later you’re gonna get hammered for an unauthorized mailbox while that guy stacks rusty car shells anyway because he doesn’t give a fuck, will never pay any fine and the HOA can’t really kick him out.

  7. Connected white people get guns. But connected black people only get advice from connected white people.

    The connected white judge in Chicago who dropped his gun in front of a security camera, in the city hall building was not prosecuted. And the white alderman who was arrested with 25 guns in his office in City Hall as far as I know is walking around free.

    The Liberals and the left can say what they want. They like the police. But they don’t like the police not being totally loyal to them. Left wants a private Army like the SA was in Germany in the 1920s and 30s.

    As far as the Libertarians go. When push comes to shove they would prefer the police over the ordinary citizen. Who would openly carry long guns patrolling their neighborhoods and “dealing” with Outsiders.

    I’ve said it for years now TTAG. Disarm the police. The law abiding can “take care of business”, without armed cops.

  10. *yawn* This has been true in the Los Angeles County subdivision of the Democratic People’s Republic of KKKalifornia for years. Hollywood stars got concealed carry permits, rich hedge fund managers got permits, CAMPAIGN contributors to candidates for Sheriff got permits (if the donations were big enough). I had a client who was a diamond merchant in the downtown L.A. “Jewelry District” (historically high rates of mugging and burglary), who personally carried his inventory of diamonds and gold to and from his place of business – after TWO of his employees were mugged doing the same job. Applied four times for a permit, was denied, finally bit the bullet and made a campaign donation. Got his permit less than a month later.

    Anyone who pretends that the “may issue” system is ANYTHING but legalized theft is a brain-dead idiot. Grifters gonna grift. And you idiots who REMAIN in KKKalifornistan need to wake up and smell the coffee.

    • I keep telling the Californians here that they should do their best to organize a mass exodus.

      For liberty-minded folks, staying is the worst of both worlds. The progtards in that state will always outnumber and outvote you. And if you stay, the Californian stupidity that’s polluting other states will only rise as a percentage of exports.

      But by raw numbers compared to the population of other western states, the CA conservative/libertarian population is huge. If only half…or, heck, 30%…of Californian conservatives pulled up stakes and moved elsewhere in the West, they could tip the balance toward freedom in states that are currently on the brink for a generation or more.

      Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada, Arizona…take your pick. Move out to a state that needs help, and do some good.

  13. Used to have a business in a may issue state. Was told that if I wanted a permit, I could get 1 for a tidy sum donated to the Sherriff’s re-election fund.
    AL. is a shall issue state. We’ve been trying to get Constitutional Carry for a while now. Sherriff’s Association is against it. They like the annual payment for renewal of permits.
    We just managed to get lifetime permits allowed.

  14. NY Pistol v. Corlett was recently granted cert., but with a condition –

    From SCOTUS blog :

    “After considering the case at three conferences, the justices agreed to weigh in. They instructed the parties to brief a slightly narrower question than the challengers had asked them to decide, limiting the issue to whether the state’s denial of the individuals’ applications to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”

    LKB was rather unhappy at that news, as I recall, on the ‘narrowing’ of the question asked (and to be answered by the Court).

    Could someone please refresh my memory on why the re-phrasing of the question was so bad for our side?

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