Posted on 04/30/2012 5:44:47 AM PDT by marktwain
BATAVIA — Patty Glomb, recording clerk in the Genesee County Clerk’s Office, sat at her desk Tuesday and motioned to her left and right, then behind and in front of her.
Her work space in County Building 1 was surrounded by drawers and cabinets full of file folders, all of them applications from county residents for new, amended or upgraded pistol permits. She and her co-workers, are, pun intended, under the gun.
“It’s almost impossible to keep up,” Glomb said.
The backlog is partly a result of a change in Genesee County policy that makes it easier to obtain a pistol permit for unrestricted use. Genesee County now allows someone who’s held a pistol permit for a minimum of five years, who has a clean criminal record, to upgrade to unrestricted use by filling out a short application.
It was fairly routine in years past to get a handgun permit to target shoot or hunt. It was much more difficult to acquire one for personal protection combined with sporting activities, which in New York is called “unrestricted use.”
Applicants had to show “good cause,” Assistant District Attorney Will Zickl said.
Examples he cited were someone who carried large sums of money or and an individual who came in contact with unsavory people. The “good cause” criterion is no longer applied as stringently, Zickl said.
Genesee County Judge Robert C. Noonan and the offices of the sheriff, county clerk and district attorney all had input in the policy change decision. Noonan approves all handgun permits in the county.
The county’s new guidelines were under discussion for several years but it wasn’t until 2011 that all parties involved in the process came to consensus.
The new procedure to expedite unrestricted use permits went into effect Jan. 1 and has not been publicized, but word has quickly spread in the gun-owners’ community.
Plus and more
Another factor in the spate of activity this year for Glomb is a significant increase in gun owners who want to add weapons onto their pistol permits. A new pistol permit holder in Genesee County is usually allowed to put five handguns on it, but the number can be increased in subsequent years, with the approval of a judge.
Glomb, whom County Clerk Don Read calls a “pistol permit guru,” has issued 695 amended permits in the first four months of 2012. That’s more than the 619 it handled the entire year in 2007.
“Back when it was slow,” Glomb joked.
Read’s office issued a total of 758 amended permits in 2008.
The Clerk’s Office received 228 such applications in just one month this year, March.
“That’s the workload that’s tripled. There’s really just an increase in people buying firearms,” Glomb said.
Read, the county clerk, said although there is a short-term deluge of work for his office, it will hopefully decrease at some point in the near future.
“Simply because we won’t be getting requests for personal protection (approval),” he said, because handgun owners will already have it.
How to
Pistol permit policy varies from county to county in New York but in all cases the final authority to approve or deny rests with a judge.
Applicants have to provide references and sign an affidavit they have no criminal record. A felony conviction automatically eliminates an applicant but misdemeanors are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Zickl of the District Attorney’s Office said he only gets involved if an application is red-flagged for possible rejection. The larger volume of permit applications has not increased the workload in his office.
“The vast majority never come to our attention,” Zickl said.
The inundation of paperwork has affected the sheriff’s department. The sheriff’s office does the criminal background checks on applicants.
Jerome Brewster, chief deputy of road patrol, said he handles about 50 applications per week for pistol permit upgrades to unrestricted use.
“I’ve got about 15 on my desk right now,” Brewster said Tuesday.
Another factor that’s added to the County Clerk’s work responsibilities in 2012 is it is digitizing all of its pistol permit records. Glomb said the county has about 8,000 permit holders and all of the information has to be entered into the system by keyboarding it.
Glomb said her backup on the project is recording clerk Jan Dispenza.
“I couldn’t do it by myself,” she said.
New handgun owners
Read’s office issued 65 new pistol permits in the first four months of 2012 and has more than 100 other applications in the pipeline. That, again, is a significant increase.
Glomb said the huge demand for new and amended pistol permits is the correlated to President Obama’s election in 2008.
Read’s office issued 83 new permits in the first year of the Obama’s Democratic administration. In years 2009 to 2011 it was 206, 154 and 208, respectively, Glomb said.
It averaged between 78 and 80 annually in the several years prior to 2008.
The SCOPE of things
Jack Taylor, president of the Genesee County Chapter of the lobbying group Shooters Committee On Political Education, confirmed that guns are figuratively flying off the shelves of local firearms’ dealers. Taylor works at Barrett’s Batavia Marine, a hunting and fishing store on West Main Street.
Taylor said gun and ammunition sales skyrocketed in the past year. Many models of guns are on back order from manufacturers, who operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can’t keep up with demand.
Taylor estimated the handful of gun shops in the county sold a total of more than 2,000 firearms in the past 12 months. That figure does not include gun shows or private sales.
Barrett’s carries a popular rifle round, the .223-caliber, and used to sell four or five cases a year.
“We do that a week, sometimes, now,” he said.
Customers are purchasing cases of ammo instead of a couple of boxes.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
Taylor linked the increased volume to several factors including Obama’s election, because he is not considered an ally of gun owners or the powerful gun lobby.
Taylor said sentiment among gun owners is a lack of trust in government and, for the conspiracy theorists who follow the Mayan calendar, “the general feeling of something happening.”
The Mayan calendar predicts a catastrophic event on Dec. 22, 2012, Taylor said.
“People want to be prepared,” he said.
Reality television shows such as “Sons of Guns” have also piqued interest in firearms and shooting sports, the SCOPE president said.
Trending now
Gun sales and ownership in Genesee County reflect what’s happening in firearms market in the rest of the country, Taylor said.
High-profile violent crime can also create a spike in the market. Orleans County experienced an increase, particularly among women, after the Oct. 30, 2011, murder of Kathleen Byham, 45, in the parking lot of the Albion Wal-Mart, Taylor said.
Byham, of Albion, was stabbed to death, allegedly by an illegal immigrant, Luis Rodriguez-Flamenco, 24. He is in jail awaiting his Aug. 6 trial date.
It’s not the stereotypical survivalists and crackpots who are adding to their arsenals, the SCOPE president said.
A pair of sales on Black Friday was a first for Taylor. Two different couples came in and bought his and her guns, he said.
“There’s a lot of people who no longer want to be victims. There’s a lot of unrest and very uncomfortable people out there,” Taylor said.
Taylor said there is no way to calculate how many guns there are in Genesee County. He said the majority of homes and almost all the farms have at least a .22-caliber rifle around.
Taylor estimated there is at least 60,000 guns in the county, enough for every man, woman and child.
“We have very little to no gun crime,” he said.
Good cause?? Protection is not enough? Why the hell do you think good guys carry guns.
Be a good little peon and I’ll give you a tiny bit more access to your constitutionaly guarenteed god given rights. Please leave your cash, check, or money order with the clerk.
BINBO!
Things are so much easier and cheaper in Arizona, but then again, we’re part of the “Wild West”, so we don’t have the rampant illegal gun crime of ‘civilized’ places like New Yawk.
When I first got my carry permit in NY, I was in Onondaga County. Judge restricted near every permit into oblivion - something like 4 unrestricted issued out of 4000 in one year. Mine allowed “for sporting use only”. That judge eventually left the bench rather abruptly (some rumor about cocaine trafficking involved).
When I moved to Monroe County (surrounding Rochester), I transferred the permit in hopes the restrictions would at least change. They did. They disappeared completely. I was happy.
Then I moved to Genesee County (per the above article). Given the propensity to apply restrictions, including a maximum limit of 5 items on the permit, I left the license’s registration home in Monroe County - glad that NY encourages, but does not compel, transfer of permits when moving in-state (NYC of course being a completely different country for most practical purposes). County Clerks and retailers kept pestering me to transfer it, but heck no.
But then I moved to GA. Permits are little more than nonexistent ($75, 5 years, background check, that’s it). Open carry not a problem. Individual sales are an exchange & a handshake. And NFA items are allowed with no more than “make sure your federal papers are in order.”
Let’s see NYS pass a preemption law to force unrestricted licenses to be valid in the five boroughs, and to pass reciprocity with other states’ CCW licenses.
“..so we don’t have the rampant illegal gun crime of ‘civilized’ places like New Yawk.”
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Jack Taylor is right...“We have very little to no gun crime.” in upstate NY.
“Individual sales are an exchange & a handshake.”
Same thing here in NY state. I buy and sell guns to individuals all the time with no restrictions or problems.
NYS is not what most people perceive it to be.
New York State is pistol-hell.
Binbo?
BINBO?
SLOOOOOWLY I TURNED, INCH BY INCH, YARD BY YARD......
This is when Judges write their own laws from the bench. Supposedly, the State Police do not recognize the restrictions. The front of the permit simply states “License to Carry Concealed”. However, if you run into a county sheriff or town cop, then you have a problem. This has been challenged in court with other judges refusing to address this issue of course.
There is no state statute that puts restrictions like this on an upstate license. Judges have their own little fiefdoms in each county however.
The thread is about HANDGUNS. NY takes a very dim view of unregistered transfers.
The restrictions issue stems from the judge’s legislated power to revoke a permit for any (or no) reason. The restrictions marked thereon amount to forewarning what conditions the permit will be yanked for. If you violate those restrictions, and the permit is yanked, there are no legal consequences (other than not having a permit and most likely not getting another one).
You are correct about private sales of handguns. I have purchased unregistered handguns from private sellers, but had to register them onto my permit.
I have a full carry in NYS. However - I can’t go into NYC with any handgun whatsoever, even though I have a full carry for the rest of the state.
Our state is really strange, the counties really run things.
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