IN: State Police Overwhelmed by Response to Free Lifetime Carry Permits

Indiana Capitol

As a compromise in the debate over Constitutional Carry, the Indiana legislature passed a firearms reform bill which eliminated the fee for an Indiana lifetime carry permit. The fee for the 5 year permit was eliminated in 2019. That law went into effect on 1 July, 2020. From the Crime Prevention Research Center, Indiana had 967,061 permits as of July 1, 2020. At that time, 18.73% of the adult population had an Indiana carry permit.

 On 1 July of 2020, when the five year permit fee was eliminated, about 8,000 applications for permits were received. From indystar.com:

State Police received 2,259 handgun permit applications from July 1-7 last year compared to 20,647 in 2020.

On July 1 alone, the day the fees were eliminated, Galaviz said the state received about 8,000 gun permit applications.

The data includes all handgun permit applications, which include lifetime permits that still have fees. About two-thirds of last week's applications were for the no-fee five-year permits, Galaviz said.

As of 1 July, 2021, the number of total active licenses had increased to 1,120,144. Those numbers translate into 21.69% of the adult population, a nearly 16% rise in permits, equal to 3% of the adult population. 69.9% of those with permits are males, 31% are females. 

The elimination of the lifetime permit fee went into effect on 1 July, 2021. The number of applications for permits showed an increase similar to the increase a year ago, on 1 July, 2020.  From fox59.com:

GREENWOOD, Ind. — There is no longer a fee to obtain a lifetime permit to carry a gun in the state of Indiana. The response from Hoosiers has been so overwhelming that it’s bogging down Indiana State Police’s firearms licensing website.

“As expected, we’ve had an influx of applications on our website. We’re asking folks that want to apply for that to be patient,” said ISP public information officer, Sgt. John Perrine.

Perrine confirmed that ISP received 7,136 applications through the site in the first 24 hours after the permits became fee exempt.

If the same pattern happens as last year, the total number of active permits will rise to 24% of the adult population in Indiana. Nearly all those permits are Indiana residents. Only a few people qualify for a non-resident permit. From ariesportal.com:

If I do not live in Indiana, can I still have an Indiana firearm license? 

 

If you are a resident of another state and have a regular place of business or employment in Indiana, you qualify for a 5 year personal protection firearm license. Your local agency will be the sheriff of the county in which you have a regular place of business or employment. You will be asked to upload the following documents on your application: 1. Print, complete, sign and notarize the Out-of-State Affidavit form stating you meet out-of-state residence requirements. 2. Provide a proof of employment on company letterhead.

Constitutional Carry came very close to passing in the Indiana legislature in 2020. If nearly a quarter of the population of voters in Indiana have carry permits, it seems very likely Constitutional Carry will pass in the next Legislative session.

©2021 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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