Sullivan pistol recertification concerns

FRITZ MAYER
Posted 12/13/17

MONTICELLO, NY — Sullivan County Clerk Dan Briggs painted of picture of thousands of angry residents calling county legislators after the state demands the residents surrender their handguns …

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Sullivan pistol recertification concerns

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MONTICELLO, NY — Sullivan County Clerk Dan Briggs painted of picture of thousands of angry residents calling county legislators after the state demands the residents surrender their handguns because those residents missed, or were unaware of, the recertification deadline.

At a meeting at the government center on December 7, Briggs told lawmakers that as of the end of November, 2,829 residents had recertified their permits out of an estimated total of about 14,000. Briggs said the exact total is not known because the registration system is not purged for deaths or people with permits that may have moved out of state.

He said many permit-holders are waiting to recertify, “either by intention, or waiting to the very last minute to hopefully inundate the system—break down the IT system, and it has broken down once already—or en masse they’re just going to ignore it because they believe they’ve got a constitutional right to have a pistol.”

The deadline for recertification is the end of January, and Briggs believes many people will be caught off guard. He said, “There are still people who were issued a permit that says good until revoked, so they believe they’re grandfathered. But they are not, because the SAFE Act supersedes the earlier permits.” The Safe Act requires that anyone who received a pistol permit prior to January 15, 2013, must recertify the permit.

What happens if they don’t? Briggs said, “Come February letters are going to be put together… informing people their privileges are lost, and they should make arrangements to surrender their guns.”

Several lawmakers expressed agreement with councilperson Joe Perello who said, “They’re going to go apesh*t.”

Briggs said lawmakers are likely to get calls from permit holders who missed the deadline because, “They’re going to be reluctant to call the state police, they’re going to be reluctant to call the local judges, they’re going to be reluctant to call the district attorney, so who does that leave? The legislators and the county clerk’s office.”

Briggs advises that once permit holders have recertified, to be sure to get verification, because that’s when the next five-year period for another recertification begins. He said it’s up to the permit-holder to keep track of the date, as there will be no notification from the state.

Briggs said he’s getting calls from people from out of state, for instance in Florida, who won’t come back to the state until May. He said if those people have an out-of-state drivers license, they are not allowed to submit the recertification online but must do so in person, and there are no extensions or postponements of the deadline.

Monticello, firearms

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