Turning Carry License Demand into Political Action

Lackawanna County Sheriff John Szymanski has been forced to extend business hours just for concealed carry license applications, pick-ups, and to answer questions about gun permits. Twice a week, his office will remain open until 8pm just to handle the approximately 40 permits a day he has been issuing since the beginning of the month. Last month, he issued 413 permits. That was up over the same month in 2011 by 56%.

The story says that the sheriff’s office couldn’t handle the “constant line” of applicants, so now they have a sign-in sheet–in addition to the added hours. The added hours will be in effect until at least the end of February, but will go back to normal once the rush slows down.

If any Lackawanna County Second Amendment supporters want to find a line of gun owners just waiting to “do something,” this would be a great place to collect signatures on letters to Congress. Activists would know that everyone in the line lives in the county, and it’s only split between two Congressional districts – Reps. Tom Marino and Matt Cartwright. Cartwright campaigned on a gun control platform pretty much as extreme as anything you’ve heard about on the table federally, but Marino could use the extra voices telling him to stand up for gun owners.

Many of the people getting licenses, buying guns, and attending gun shows have told reporters that they feel their “action” is speaking to Congress. In fact, it isn’t saying anything at all to Congress, other than the fact that they don’t actually care enough about their rights to talk to anyone else about them. Pew recently released a poll that shows only 15% of people who support the Second Amendment & feel it should be protected from gun control proposals we’re hearing about right now have ever contacted a lawmaker about the issue. If we mobilize even a portion of that remaining 85% who say they support us, but have not bothered to write, then we can preserve the Second Amendment as an individual right.