NYPD: Gun License Applicants Can Expect an Answer in 6 Months

The NYPD’s gun licensing webpage details how to apply for a license to own a gun for self-defense, then adds the caveat that applicants can expect an answer in six months.

According to the NYPD, “Within approximately six months of receipt of your handgun application, and all required documents/forms, you will receive a letter informing you whether your application was approved.”

This raises the question–What are NYC residents who are enduring a stalker, an abusive spouse or former spouse, or perhaps the threat of danger in the streets, supposed to do in the six months between applying for a gun license and hearing back from the NYPD?

In other states and locales, the wait for government permission to own a gun has proven detrimental.

For example, Breitbart News reported the June 3, 2015, stabbing death of Berlin Township, New Jersey, resident Carol Bowne. She had applied for handgun license on April 21, 2015, in order to protect herself from a former boyfriend against whom she had a restraining order.

On June 3, while still awaiting state’s permission to own a gun, Bowne was stabbed to death in her own driveway by her former boyfriend.

Bowne had only been waiting a month and half when tragedy struck. The NYPD intimates that applicants should expect an answer on their applications in six months.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.