State Issues 10,000 Permits

By Chad Lawhorn, Journal-World, Lawrence, Kan.

Jan. 14–MIAMI COUNTY — home to Paola and Osawatomie — has the highest number of concealed carry permit holders per capita in Kansas.

That’s among the details contained in statistics from the first year of operation of the state’s concealed carry program. Legislators allowed the Kansas Attorney General’s Office to begin accepting permit applications in July 2006, but licenses weren’t issued until January 2007. A total of 10,567 have been issued through the first week of this month.

Chuck Sexson, director of the concealed carry program for the Attorney General’s Office, said the office was busiest with applications in December 2006 and January 2007, when more than 1,000 were received in both months. But since September, the numbers have leveled off at about 350 or fewer per month.

“We think it probably is going to hold steady at those numbers,” Sexson said.

Douglas County had 294 permits issued during 2007, which equaled out to a per capita rate of one per every 381 people. The statewide average is one permit per every 261 people.

Other items from the first year’s worth of statistics included:

–Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita, had the most licenses issued at 2,022. Trego County — in northwest Kansas — was the only county to have no licenses issued.

–The attorney general’s office denied 135 applications. Meanwhile, it also suspended the concealed carry permits of five individuals and revoked the permits of 11 others. Sexson said the most common reason for revocation was that a restraining order had been filed against a permit holder.

Sexson said it was up to sheriff’s offices to check each restraining order issued in a county against the state’s concealed carry files to determine if a restraining order involves a concealed carry permit holder.

“The bottom line is that it is up to the sheriff’s department to run those,” Sexson said. “We haven’t had any feedback from sheriff’s departments that they’re having a problem with that.”

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