Nevada's new concealed weapons
law has yielded a 1200% increase in the rate of approval
for handgun-carry permits in Washoe County, yet there
have been very few problems, says the county Sheriff's
Department. Permits averaged under 100 a
year during 1994, the last full calendar year before
implementation of "concealed-carry" reform
legislation passed by the 1995 Nevada Legislature,
according to Captain Lee Bergevin of the department's
administrative bureau. But
since the law took effect last October, he said, permits
have, until recently, been averaging about 100 per month.
"Since
the law's been in effect, I have denied, I think, three
permits and revoked three," Bergevin told Electric
Nevada. "And we have issued, I think, well in
excess of 800. "So
that's pretty minimal problems." Under
the new state law, law-abiding Nevadans who complete a
sheriff-approved firearms competence course, can now more
easily receive the permits. Not
only have application costs been lowered, but the burden
of proof has been removed from people seeking the
concealed-carry permits. Rather
than citizens having to prove why they should be
permitted to carry a firearm on their person, it is now
county sheriffs who have to justify why an applicant
should not receive a permit. "Occasionally,
you'll have somebody that isn't disqualified by the law
but [who] I don't feel real comfortable with giving them
a permit," said Bergevin. "But under the law
they qualify, so I give them one." One
important goal of Nevada's law was to set uniform
standards across the entire state. In
the past, says Robert Seligman, who worked for passage,
"You had 17 different jurisdictions reading [the
law] differently." Some,
he said, interpreted the law very loosely, and others
interpreted the concealed weapons part of the statute
much more strictly. "There
were counties that said carrying [a firearm in] a
briefcase or a woman's purse was not on your person,
[and] there were counties that would arrest you for
that." In
the past, say other gun owners and conservative
activists, permits were often only issued to applicants
personally okayed by Nevada's county sheriffs. In some
counties that meant people were treated unequally, they
say, with permits often only going to sheriffs' personal
friends. In
Washoe County, said Bergevin, Sheriff Dick Kirkland began
loosening up the permit-issuing procedure soon after
taking office in early 1994. Even
so, after the new state law took effect October 1,
"there was kind of a rush," said the captain.
For 1995 as a whole, the department issued 596 permits.,
Lately however, he said, the rate of applications has
dropped off. Bergevin
doesn't expect law enforcement representatives to seek
any significant modification of the new law in next
year's legislative session. "If
there are any [problems], I think they are pretty
minor," he said. "From my own standpoint, I
don't see many problems." The
sheriff's office has procedures in place to deal with any
problems involving permit holders. "If
they get arrested or something like that, or if something
else happens that would put them in the category of being
disqualified, then we'll act on it," Bergevin said. "So
far 
we have had one revoked because the person
was served with a temporary order for protection against
domestic violence," Bergevin said.
Copies
of all such orders come through his office, said the
captain, and so the department routinely cross-checks the
names of persons named in restraining orders against
previously issued permits.
"The
other ones [revoked], both of those, were arrests, and
they were brought to our attention by the agency that
arrested them," said Bergevin, adding that when
someone is arrested, their permit is routinely suspended,
pending resolution of the matter.
Nevada's
new law is one of a recent wave of
"shall-issue" laws passed by America's state
legislatures. While national gun-control and anti-handgun
groups have opposed the surge, more than half the states
-- according to American Firearms Magazine, at least 27
states -- now have laws similar to Nevada's.
National
advocates of the new "shall-issue" permit laws
say they do help fight crime.
"In
Florida, and the 26 other states which have enacted
"shall-issue" concealed carry firearm permit
laws," writes attorney Robert G. Heinritz, Jr., on
the website of American Firearms Industry magazine,
"the rate of homicide, robbery, and aggravated
assault has declined -- even while going up in
surrounding states.
"On
the other hand, the misuse of firearms by legal
permit-holders has been so statistically insignificant
that even the opponents have stopped counting."
Heinritz
says the statistics are compiled from the FBI Uniform
Crime Report and other official sources, and that the
definitions used by those sources makes them doubly
significant.
"'Homicide,'
for example," he says, "includes any killing of
one person by another, including police shootings and
justifiable self-defense.
"Thus,
even justifiable violence -- such as a mother protecting
her children -- declined where law-abiding citizens are
permitted their right to protect themselves."
An
organization called The Violence Policy Center, resisting
the spread of right-to-carry laws, criticized Florida's
law in a letter sent to newspapers around the nation.
"'Concealed carry license holders do commit
crimes" under Florida's program, the letter said.
Florida
secretary of State Sandra Mortham responded that, since
the law took effect in October of 1987, there were 324
licenses revoked because the licensee committed a crime
after receiving a license.
Since
207,978 licenses had been issued, she said, the
revocations amounted to less than .001% of all licenses.
Also,
she said, "As of November 30, 1995, only 54 of those
324 utilized a firearm in the commission of their
crime," which calculates to one-sixth of .001
percent.
"If
you look closely at the statistics," concluded Ms.
Mortham, "and consider the fact that Florida's
Concealed Weapon or Firearm License Program has been in
effect for eight years with no changes initiated by any
law enforcement group, you will agree that the program is
indeed a success and a model for other states."