License-To-Carry Gun Applications Swamp Chesco Sheriff's Office

CHESTER COUNTY, PA — The Chester County Sheriff's Office will be working weekends to double its processing capacity as demand for permits to carry concealed firearms continues to skyrocket.

In the third and fourth quarters of 2020, the demand for firearms permits rose steeply in Chester County, prompting the county to add an office and extend staff hours to process the applications.

Statewide, from October 2020 to the end of December, the number of background checks for firearm permits — which ties closely to the number of gun sales — was the highest on record, Pennsylvania State Police reported in January. Firearm permits in the quarter from July 2020 through September had also broken previous records.

Demand for the permits continues and the Chester County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) said today it has taken steps to double the number of applications processed.

In 2019, the CCSO issued a total of 5,704 License-to-Carry (LTC) permits. In 2020, the CCSO issued 6,072 LTC permits.

As of mid-February 2021, the CCSO had processed 1,059 permits, and there are currently 4,300 additional applicants already scheduled for an appointment for a permit.

“The increase in license-to-carry permits has escalated to the point where we cannot meet demand with one office that is open Monday through Friday,” said Chester County Sheriff Fredda Maddox. “The only way to try to keep up with the demand for LTC applications is to extend our hours, add more staff and a second office.

“We will assess how the pilot program and other changes we have made meet the demand while continuing to explore additional solutions,” Maddox said.

To keep up with the increased demand for License-to-Carry (LTC) permits, the CCSO has added weekend hours to allow more applications to be processed and is piloting a second satellite location which officially opened March 1, that will double the number of applications that can be processed.

In 2019, the sheriff’s office said it processed, on average, two new LTC permit applications every 15 minutes, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This amounted to about 50 new applications processed daily.

The Chester County Sheriff's Office made other improvements over the last year, including:

• Adding an electronic payment method to serve applicants who desire a permit, but do not have cash on hand at their application appointment.
• Implementing an online appointment-scheduling system that allows applicants the ability to schedule appointments 24/7 and avoids problems and likely security issues that an in-person, first-come, first-served system would bring.
• Allowing CCSO to be compliant with COVID protocols and avoid having large numbers of people congregating in the lobby of the Justice Center and in and around the CCSO office;
• Freeing up CCSO staff to focus on processing applications, rather than answering telephone calls to schedule application appointments.
• Purchasing additional cameras and computer equipment, and training additional staff, in order to accommodate the increased demand for licenses.

The CCSO is looking at further methods for speeding up the processing of LTC applications, including the use of private vendors who offer online, cloud-based solutions to assist sheriff’s offices in processing gun permit applications — noting that LTC records are protected by stringent state confidentiality laws and any data breach brings with it significant penalties and ramifications.

While at the start of the pandemic some surrounding counties stopped processing LTC applications, the CCSO continued to process applications for gun owners whose licenses were about to expire, even after Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf granted an extension on LTC renewals.

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