Sunday, February 8, 2009

Michigan county drops gun board meetings for CCW applicants

From Michigan:
LAPEER -- Law enforcement leaders are at odds over a majority decision to abolish monthly conferences between the Lapeer County Gun Board and citizens who hope to carry concealed weapons.

Lapeer County Sheriff Ron Kalanquin believes the meetings with applicants who will have hidden weapons for the first time is an important part of the process. Michigan State Police F/Lt. Patrick McGreevy and the Lapeer County Prosecutor's Office consider the gatherings a waste of law enforcement resources.

"Being a concealed permit licensee marks these individuals as the good citizens of our community," Kalanquin said. "I did not consider the CPL (Concealed Pistol License) Board a burden, rather an opportunity and effective mechanism for individual citizens to sit down face to face with their chief law enforcement officials to pose questions or make comments."

"If a person qualifies, is certified and they have no criminal history or mental problems, they're entitled to obtain the license," said Lapeer County Prosecutor Byron Konschuh. "There is no reason they should be inconvenienced by having to meet with the gun board. They still have to go through the same process to obtain the license."

Article here. The whole point of "shall issue" laws was to remove discretion (which was often abused) from the application approval process. Once you meet the objective, statutorily defined criteria, the state must issue you the permit. If that's the case, what's the point of requiring "gun board" interviews? Good news for Lapeer county residents.

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