A torrent of applications for firearm concealed carry permits and a marked increase in the number of licensed carriers in 2013 will keep temporary workers with the Indiana State Police processing the forms on staff indefinitely.
The Indiana State Police issued 111,000 personal protection permits in 2013, an 83 percent increase from 2012.
As of Dec. 31, Indiana had 538,000 active firearms license holders. Indiana has the fifth most concealed and open carriers in the country, according to a congressional report.
In the 11 counties that make up Southwestern Indiana, about one of every eight adults now holds a personal protection permit.
“It really was an aberration of things happening nationally in politics, and both sides, pro-gun and anti-gun, making an issue of it,” said Indiana State Police Capt. David Bursten on last year’s jump in the number of license applications.
During President Barack Obama’s first few years as executive, his administration actually loosened gun laws — signing legislation allowing guns in national parks and on trains. However, after a round of deadly shooting events — most notably the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in December 2012 — led to a presidential agenda seeking stricter ammunition policies and universal background checks.
Like a firing pin hitting a primer, polarized opposition quickly created an environment that told people guns and the permits may not be around forever, Bursten said. There were 23,000 applications in January 2013 alone.
Obama’s gun proposals failed in Congress in April, but interest in purchasing guns and obtaining a permit to carry persisted.
Historically, the agency receives 4,500 applications per month, however, in the first six months of 2013, the Indiana State Police received 90,000 firearms licensing applications.
Wait times between application and receiving the pink piece of paper that is the license were taking weeks, even months, longer than normal, prompting the agency to add five “temporary” employees to ease the workload.
Bursten said those five positions will remain indefinitely as the administration evaluates whether 2013 was an outlier or if the norm has become thousands of applications.
Nowadays, most applications can clear the state police within two weeks. But people who misreport information on their application can push wait times back further, Bursten said.
“We don’t know if they did it because of bad memory or to game the system, but it takes time to get it resolved,” he said.
With the extra help, the agency has been able to process the applications much better than the first half of 2013.
“A lot of what we gauge by is by complaints — we don’t see people calling the media or legislators and saying that they can’t get their permit,” Bursten said.
Still, the Evansville Police Department tells applicants that wait times for their permit may be between six weeks and six months.
The number of female license holders jumped 20 percent in the first six months in 2013. From December 2012 to December 2013, there was a 35 percent increase statewide in Hoosier women with active permits. In Southwestern Indiana the increase for women with permits was 43 percent.
In Vanderburgh County, there was a 46 percent uptick, or 900 more female license holders, from 2012.
The most popular personal protection permit in the state is the lifetime license, which accounts for 88 percent of firearms licenses issued in 2013. Indiana is one of two states in the U.S. that issues a lifetime permit, the other being Louisiana, which just began issuing lifetime permits in 2013.
At $125, the lifetime is the “economical” choice as a 4-year permit is $40. As long as the holder remains a “proper person” in the eyes of Indiana state law, a lifetime permit is good in perpetuity.
Beyond remaining a “proper person” — not being a drug or alcohol abuser, not having felony convictions or other serious violations of law — Indiana regulations to obtain a personal protection permit are lax, unlike Kentucky, which requires a state-approved firearms safety or training course before issuing a concealed carry license.
Kentucky had 244,000 concealed carriers as of 2013, according to the Kentucky State Police. Ohio had 459,000 licensed carry holders as of the end the year, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. To the north, Michigan had 428,000, according to state police there.
Coming off a federal court ruling that decided the state could not prohibit issuing concealed carry permits, Illinois is in the fledgling stage of implementing a concealed carry permit system that will require 16 hours of training. Illinois State Police expect 400,000 applicants this year.
Signed into law in 2011, a bill co-authored by Posey County Republican Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, prohibits local governments from putting restrictions on gun ownership, leaving regulation at the state level.
In the current session of the Indiana General Assembly, legislation proposed by Sen. Jean Breaux, D-Indianapolis, sought training for handgun owners, but the bill didn’t receive a hearing.
An Indiana House attempt to allow people to keep guns in their car on school property gained traction early in January, but was cut out after the proposals were mixed in with another piece of legislation.