Are NYPD Gun Permit Delays Incompetence or Something More Vile? – Bearing Arms

If you want a gun permit in New York City, you have to take it up with the NYPD. This hasn’t changed much since Bruen, except that they can’t just arbitrarily turn you down. 

In theory, this also should reduce corruption. After all, there were plenty of reports of NYPD officers accepting bribes in exchange for getting a permit to carry a firearm in what was, at the time, the most restrictive city in the country. Now that they can’t deny permits, that opportunity for graft is gone.

Or is it?

Over at Ammoland, a story about the NYPD permitting delays and how they stretch past the six-month limit laid down in state law, there was something that came up that really piqued my interest.

NYPD License Division Has a History of Corruption

Anecdotally, we have heard some License officers are accepting bribes merely to do what State law mandates from them—timely processing of handgun licenses. Unfortunately, corruption isn’t something new to the NYPD License Division.

CNN wrote about this over ten years ago, citing Arbalest Quarrel’s Co-founder, Stephen L. D’Andrilli.

“‘New York City, as a major city in the U.S., is one of the most restrictive cities in the country concerning gun licensing laws,’ said retired police officer Stephen D’Andrilli, a former NYPD cop who is now a consultant for clients seeking handgun licenses.

“The licensing system is meant to filter out dangerous applicants, like those with a history of domestic violence. But D’Andrilli, who extolls the ‘utmost importance’ of the Second Amendment through his website the Arbalest Quarrel, said the restrictive laws of New York have created an environment that allows a black market to exist.”

Evidently, that same corruption has resurfaced in a City now governed by a Socialist Mayor who detests the institution of policing, and by a Governor who abhors the notion of the armed civilian citizen.

This situation is untenable and begs for corrective legal action.

If this is actually happening, heads need to roll.

It’s one thing to require a permit in order to exercise a constitutionally protected right. It’s another to either create a delay or allow delays to creep in, then demand a bribe in order to do your blasted job and process the paperwork as required by law.

To say this disgusts me is to put it in far too mild terms. Disgust is too tame, too milquetoast of a term for what I’m feeling about this.

It’s bad enough that New York City is hostile toward gun ownership in general, but if members of the NYPD are accepting bribes in order to actually comply with the law, that makes it worse.

At least before Bruen, some were accepting bribes to decide someone had good cause. That was a subjective thing and so a little money changing hands could grease those wheels. This, though, if it’s happening, is worse simply because the law says they have to approve it within six months, and if people are demanding money to simply do what they’re supposed to do…

It should be noted that these are really just allegations, but they’re serious ones. There is not a lot of evidence this is happening as of now, nor is there likely to be. Those who pay won’t exactly come forward and admit they committed a felony. With those who didn’t pay, it’s a matter of he said/she said. It’ll be framed as sour grapes over the delay or that the individual in question is lashing out because they didn’t get some kind of priority.

It’s unlikely anyone will look into this…

…unless the DOJ’s Second Amendment Division takes up the case, I suppose.

After all, if a right delayed is a right denied, then NYC is still denying people’s gun rights.

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