In state pistol permit options

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Hey all, 1st post but let me get right to it.

I applied for my pistol permit back on June 27th. I currently stand at 18 weeks and counting against the state statute requirement of 8 weeks. I know that my town directly violated two requirements of the state statute: they did not forward my background request on to SPBI until August 3rd (violating 5 business day requirement), they did not notify my in writing as to the cause of the delay when they had not made a decision on the status of my application by week 8.

I have filed a constructive denial appeal with the BFPE (after 12 weeks past) but my hearing date is not until April of next year. Are there any other options at my disposal to render a more near term decision? I want to point out the statute violations to the local PD but all permit inquires are referred to the records department so it just feels like I'd be wasting my breathe with an uninterested party at that point. I'm almost positive that the answer will be that I'm more or less stuck, just frustrated as I don't really want to wait the additional 6-8 weeks that the PD is suggesting it will take.

Also, assuming that I do eventually receive my permit sometime at the end of this year before my appeal date, is there any avenue to report the town's statute violation to perhaps encourage them to change behavior for the next group that applies?

Sorry for the long rant/venting
 
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You are doing everything right.

There are no other legal routes for you to take unless you want to move out of state and apply to the DESPP for a non-resident PP.

On a practical level, you may want to make an appointment to meet with the licensing officer. Don't aske questions over the phone. Just get an appointment

You may also want to go on the CCDL facebook site and pose the question to them. There are a couple of guys who are more up to date than I am on the details of the process. But either way. The reality is that if Wethersfield won't issue, you have to wait for a BFPE hearing.
 
Thank you for the suggestion. I have requested an appointment with the chief of police. While it most likely won't accomplish any reduction in the lead time for my permit, it would at least provide me an opportunity to make him aware of the current deficiencies to the process within his department (I'm of course assuming the department is large enough that he isn't aware of the day to day handling of the permit applications).
 
It can't hurt.

Often just letting them know that you have filed a constructive denial appeal gets them going

Most likely they do this because they want to add friction and delay to the process of getting a PP.
The actual process takes about a week. Don't let them bull5h1t you.

South Windsor, a VERY 2A friendly town regularly turns PP apps around in 2-3 weeks.
At least they did when Tom LePore was the licensing officer. When I found out he was promoted I was concerned that the greenest of "green" towns might change. He assure me all was fine, that the new licensing officer was going to be reporting to him.
 
Johearn:

I'm sure you don't want to hear this but I applied for my permit on July 8, 2018 and I received my temp permit and state permit on October 18th. My temp permit was actually approved 10/15 but they mailed me a letter telling me it was approved and informing me to pick it up in person, I didn't get the letter until 10/18. I got the letter in the mail around 1pm, went right down to the PD and picked up the temp and then drove straight to Middletown where it took around 10 minutes to actually print out the real permit. I guess the only positive in the long wait is that the receipt of the actual state permit is super quick. Although after I got my state permit I turned around and there was about 15 people in the line, I'm sure some where doing renewals but I would bet most of them are new permit holders. There is a ton of people getting permits, every time I go to Hoffman's no matter what time of day it seems like there is always a good amount of people in there purchasing firearms.

I'm a few towns away from you in Hartford County, west of the CT river. Sorry, I like to keep my town location confidential but my town is similar to Wethersfield in terms of population. I'm sure the WPD already has your state results, the FBI results are almost instant. If you are printed digitally they are automatically sent to the FBI and a response is sent back within hours. Matter of fact the FBI received the request for me on July 8 and returned it on the same day, yes it was a Sunday but it is automated, I called the FBI and they confirmed. The rest of the 14 week wait was the state check. I think you may be confused by the date they forwarded your background check request, I too had a similar question, but how it works is if you are printed on the AFIS scanner they are automatically sent to the State and then it sits in the queu at the fingerprint division before it is sent over to the unit that actually runs the BG check. The date the State gave you is most likely the date the State actually logged the receipt of your fingerprints, not the date they were sent.

My guess is that the WPD already has your state and FBI records back. Most towns assign it to a detective who has other cases to work on so the permit approval can sit on someone's desk for a while, then the chief has to sign it which also adds to the delay. It is a long wait but at the end of the day the permits are not a priority for the towns, they have a ton of other cases to work on and while it would be ideal to have just one person handle permits, most towns are financially hurting right now and they can't afford to pay the salary and benefits for one officer to just do permits. My town is doing Ok financially and they do have an officer assigned to the permits, among other detective work which maybe sped up the process a bit?

I was also contemplating a constructive appeal. My NRA instructor talked about the process and said I could do it but it wouldn't really speed up the process. The only step I took was I politely called the officer who does the permits at week 8 and he explained the delay with the State but said my permit would be typed up the second the State results came back in.

Good luck. I'm sure you will hear something back soon
 
I did have a constructive email exchange with the Police Chief, we were able to determine that the root cause of the delay getting into queue with the SPBI was due to a processing issue with the town finance department depositing my check and issuing one to the state. Seems to have been caused by delays due to end of the fiscal year for the town. The PC informed me that they would be correcting the issue for future applicants.

On the bright side I called SPBI this afternoon and they informed me that my background info had been sent back to the town this AM. I called the department for an update and was quoted the potential for another month. I have since sent an email to the detective in charge of applications stating the above information while also referencing the requirement in General Statutes of CT, Ch 529, Sec 29-29(c) to render a decision within 1 week of receipt of criminal check from SPBI. I asked that they confirm their intention to comply with the cited Statute. If I receive a less than satisfactory response or no decision by Fri noon I have every intention of replying to my previous exchange with the PC.

Hoping that by this time next week I will finally receive my permit after only 20 weeks (and change).
 
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Nice job.
Since you had a constructive exchange with the chief. I'd also send whatever you sent to the detective n charge, to the chief. With a quick "I thought you might want to know that". note.

It appears the detective is useless and the chief may have an interest in actually providing some cusomer service. So make sure you CC the chief on any communications with the detective.
 
And the story has a happy ending. 20 weeks and a day later I have my new pistol permit after racing over to both the PD and MT before they closed. I had a good discussion with the detective in charge on Monday morning and she was able to review my results and have the chief sign off on the temp permit this week.

14 weeks seems to be the appropriate current turn time, mostly due to the SPBI backlog. If you are just starting on the process, read through the applicable statute sections, it wouldn't hurt to remind departments of the submittal and review requirements (5 business days on each end of the state criminal check). These are the areas where extra time can creep in to really impact the 14 week timeline (such as in my case).
 
The problem is that the current law does not have any "teeth". Since it provides for neither criminal nor civil penalties if the PD doesn't deliver in the correct amount of time.

I forget what state it was but somewhere several years ago, the legislature threatened to pass a law providing that the applicant's copy of their application for a carry license became a carry license after X number of days per statute. Suddenly the PDs started delivering within the time requiremetns.
 
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