Seems like everybody is talking about This Story It was emailed to me last night by Mom-in-law, and I kinda dismissed it. I mean Maine is pretty much 100% middle-of-the-road when it comes to carry permits. You need to take NRA Basic Pistol or equivalent, pass a background check, pay $60 ($80 for Non-Resident), and wait 30 days for processing. Police have no discretion to issue or not, if you don’t disqualify you get your permit.
There are many states that are better, many that are worse.
I dismissed the story was because gun permits are up here in Massachusetts which is one of the worst states to get a gun permit, so I’m just not surprised. Also besides DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago we also have Open carry in California And generally Lots of gun, and less crime
So I was going to dismiss it, but since everybody on the ‘net is talking about it, and I’m from Maine, I thought I’d chime in.
Essentially Permits are up EVERYWHERE….except for maybe Arizona!
If you don’t have your permit, maybe should give it a thought!
I am a little dubious of those numbers as Maine does not maintain a central CCW registry (which is one of the hidden gems of Maine Carry). For those in urban areas with police departments, the department will issue your permit, but they do not report it to anyone at the state level. The State Police issue permits to Mainers in rural areas with no local police, and they also issue the nonres. Last year, the colonel of the ME SP said they had 23000 permits issued. I would assume that would be active permits issued over the past 4 years.
Maine is not exactly ‘shall issue’. There is a suitability clause in the laws that allow the issuing department to reject your CCW permit if they deem you are not suitable. There is no hard and fast rule as to what makes you nonsuitable, clearly subjective. I know of nobody rejected for this, but I spoke with several CLEOs who rejected for this reason. All long stories, all judgement calls. But for the ones I am aware of, the folks denied didn’t gripe about it.
Cycle times on MESP issued permits are running much closer to 60 days now, they are swamped. But they are issuing renewals backdated, so that helps a bit.
A basic pistol class or equivalent is required to be taken within 5 years of application. This is waived in a few circumstances – if you have a DD214, have a pistol instructor cert, and i have also heard the SP are waiving the 5-year window for all applicants including non-res.
If anyone needs a hand getting a ME permit, I can issue the basic pistol certs. For the true rebel, I could teach the class using only MA-noncompliant guns 🙂
Ima takin the Basic Pistol Class this very month! w00t!
The cost of Maine permits has changed. I only paid $35 for mine, resident renewals are $20. Non-res permits are now $60. The easy part is shelling out the cash, the pain in the ass is filling out the 10 page form.