Concealed Carry in Maine
Posted on the 16 February 2013 by Mikeb302000
Kennebec Journal
If you want a concealed-weapons permit from the Maine State Police, be
ready to wait three or four months. There’s a 2,500-application backlog.
As gun sales nationwide and in Maine have skyrocketed in
recent years, so has permit demand, said Lt. Scott Ireland, who runs the
state police’s licensing division, which handles permit applications
for more than 300 small, rural municipalities, along with unorganized
territories and townships. Larger cities and towns handle their own.
With 100 to 150 applications coming to Ireland’s office
daily, the four employees tasked with handling them — only one working
on it full time — are stretched.
In 2008, Barack Obama
was elected president. The Maine State Police issued 3,912 permits that
year, Ireland said. In 2009, Obama took office. it issued 5,706 —
nearly a 46 percent increase. And in 2012, the year of the president’s
re-election, it issued 7,574. With that backlog, Ireland said, 2013 will
be another record year.