High demand, low supply

Mass. sees increase in gun permit requests, low supplies

During the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, toilet paper wasn’t the only consumer good flying off the shelves.

There were record gun sales last year and people of all ages and genders filed a flood of new License to Carry gun permit applications at southern Massachusetts police stations.

But while toilet paper supplies have rebounded, firearms and ammunition are in short supply and police can’t keep up with the demand for this type of gun license.

The unprecedented situation is likely due to the coronavirus pandemic, political and social unrest, and concerns about the enactment of stricter gun laws, local police officials and gun shop owners say.

“People want to have protection,” said Ted Oven, owner of the Northeast Trading Co. on Kelley Boulevard in North Attleboro.

“There’s been a lot of unrest,” he said. “People are scared about what’s going on.”

In addition to the pandemic, last year saw protests over the killing of Black suspects, a section of Portland, Oregon, without police protection and nationwide demands to defund law enforcement.

Added to that turmoil were a contentious presidential campaign and election, which led to a homegrown insurrection at the Capitol.

Some area police departments have reported an increase in License to Carry gun permit applications leading to a paperwork backlog locally and at the state level, where local permits must be approved.

New applicants must be fingerprinted, which wasn’t taking place in the early months of the pandemic as police stations were closed to the public for health reasons. Although fingerprinting is now being done, the pace is slower because pandemic precautions have to be taken to keep police and applicants safe.

In Attleboro, the largest community in The Sun Chronicle’s readership area, new applications are taking up to seven months to process, according to Officer Richard Berube, who handles firearms applications full time.

Prior to the pandemic last March, Berube processed up to 15 new and renewal applications combined per week.

Now, Berube said, he takes an average of 15 new applications a week, almost four times the weekly average in the last three years.

Currently, he said, there are about 260 new applications waiting to be processed, almost twice the number of new applications he would process in a year prior to the pandemic.

As part of the background checks of some applicants, Berube said he has to obtain any necessary police reports and court records from various agencies. His ability to get those records, Berube said, depends on the staffing during the pandemic at other agencies.

The process of fingerprinting, which used to take about 15 minutes, now takes more than twice as long because of the safety precautions required by health experts, Berube said.

Renewal applications are less complicated, he said, because the license holder’s fingerprints are already on file.

Most of the new applicants are residents in their mid-20s, 40s and 50s, Berube said, adding there are some in their 70s as well.

Photo by Mark Stockwell Ted Oven, owner of Northeast Trading Co. in North Attleboro, says he hasn’t received a gun shipment in five months. As a result, he currently has only five hunting rifles left to sell, and his cases and shelves, normally stocked with ammo and firearms, are empty.