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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Ind. Law - Applications for handgun permit may receive inadequate vetting

Mark Alesia, Heather Gillers, Tim Evans and Mark Nichols report the results of a major Indianapolis Star investigation on who gets gun permits in a lengthy story today. It begins:

One Indiana man pressed the barrel of a loaded handgun into the chest of a woman holding her 1-year-old son.

Another's handgun was confiscated by police three times -- twice for shooting in public. A third man was arrested for allegedly dealing crack cocaine and later was accused of beating his girlfriend.

But it's not merely those actions that concern law enforcement officials and others on both sides of the polarizing handgun debate. It's what happened next.

In each of these three cases, the person later applied for a permit to carry a handgun in public. And in all of these cases -- and hundreds of other questionable ones uncovered by The Indianapolis Star -- the Indiana State Police granted that request, often over the objections of the local police department and even though, in some cases, it appears the State Police had a legal obligation to deny the permit.

Even worse, many of those people committed subsequent crimes, some with the guns they were legally permitted to carry.

The story has several side-bars, including: "Should these Hoosiers have been allowed to carry guns in public? here; and a database of 300.000 gun carry permit holders, here.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 11, 2009 11:22 AM
Posted to Indiana Law