The York Dispatch doesn’t like “mail-order permits,” believing they are a bad policy [and they are Righthaven Collaborators, so I have removed the link]. They bring up the now infamous and ridiculous “Florida Loophole.” They speak as if you can just go online and order the damned things like it’s on Amazon. But I’m wondering if the Dispatch would join us in helping fix the problem, or whether below is just so many words, which I will paraphrase:
Blah blah blah, you can vote sheriffs out of office if you don’t like them.
Gun owners can always fix the character clause, blah blah blah.
People who have Florida licenses are sneaky, blah blah, close the loophole. blah blah.
The character clause is problematic, and the solution is to fix it now. If the character clause issue were fixed, I’d have less issue demanding PA residents hold a PA LTC. My understanding is that any arrest will disqualify you from an LTC is Philadelphia, under the character clause, even if it’s an old arrest from years ago, and charges were never forthcoming. Considering people have been arrested in Philadelphia for doing things like legally carrying guns, only to have charges dismissed or thrown out, this is an issue. Yes, there is an appeals process, but that typically requires hiring a lawyer, and the appeals board in Philadelphia is stacked with people who uphold everything the PPD do. As one Philadelphia area attorney noted:
The Philly government doesn’t want to issue you the state-mandated LTCF, so they will do everything they can to trip up as many people as possible. They know that some percentage of denied applicants will drop it. Some will appeal, but lose. Some will appeal and win, but that’s a smaller number than the total number of applicants, and hey, it’s not like it’s the bureaucrats’ money being pissed away pointlessly, right?
This has to be fixed before I’m even willing to talk about any “Florida Loophole.” The issue is that Philadelphia is routinely abusing its discretion under the character clause. Very few states still allow that level of discretion among their issuing authorities. Perhaps the solution to this is that in PA, we need to spell it out.
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