Quote Originally Posted by OwnTheRide View Post
For the record, Sheriff Benedict says he is pro-2A, and I believe him. While his refusal to accept non-resident applications is clearly unlawful, his reasons for doing so (briefly, he is unable to conduct background checks he considers sufficient, for non-residents) are not entirely without merit. And, twice now, when challenged regarding an unlawful policy, he has acquiesced. Furthermore, the fact that he has repeatedly taken the time to listen and respond to my concerns is a very good thing. I wish he would follow the law to the letter, but I understand why he has taken the positions he has.
No offense, but this type of attitude is part of the reason this country is where it is currently regarding the 2nd amendment.
First of all, he's not pro 2a if this is his position and clearly his behavior reflects that. I say this because we all know that "licenses" and "permits" to carry a firearm are unconstitutional infringements of the 2a, hence why so many states are correctly changing over to constitutional carry. With that in mind, any CLEO who would not only go above, but beyond the law, chose to willfully ignore it (as you stated, he was educated about this in 2016, and it was still an issue now) is no better than Feinstein trying to ban "assault weapons." There is ABSOLUTELY no excuse for a CLEO to try and restrict the right of the people to bear arms regardless of their reasoning. He doesn't "feel" like he can research people enough to "sign off"? Too friggin bad, the law says otherwise, and his job is to follow the law, period, end of story. If he wants to interpret the law, he can become a judge. If he wants to study the law, a lawyer. If he wants to change the law as he is doing, he can become a member of the legislative branch. This is a democracy, whether he likes it or not.
If he was truly pro 2a, he'd be doing his best to pump out as many LTCF as he could, as fast as he could, with as few denials as lawfully possible. That's all there is to it. Unfortunately he doesn't have the power to declare his jurisdiction doesn't require a LTCF, which would be the TRUE pro 2a thing to do; but by that same logic, he damn sure isn't allowed to add additional requirements to applications or deny people based on a disbelief of the adequacy of PICS.

Secondly, if anything, he deserves to be called out and confronted over this. We shouldn't feel thankful "he took the time to listen", he should be thankful someone with deep pockets isn't bringing a lawsuit against him, as people have done in the past with counties charging extra fees and requiring extra paperwork with app's. His actions are unlawful, and based on the history you gave, it's safe to assume he's planning to continue denials as I'm sure he's (rightfully) counting on NY residents not to know our laws as well as you do. His threats of doing something even more unlawful (maybe I'll just shut down NY permits altogether) make this even worse. DO YOUR FREAKING JOB, FUDD. You don't get to interpret the law. You get to follow and enforce it. Period, end of story. If he wants to pretend PA is a "may issue" shithole like PRNJ or PRNY, he can move there and get his rocks off deciding to deny law abiding citizens at will of their constitutional rights. But here in PA, part of his job is to receive LTCF applications without ANY OTHER ADDED PAPERWORK, process them, and issue the LTCF unless there's a lawful reason not to. He doesn't get to just decide "I don't think the system is strong enough so I won't follow it."