NYPD Makes Gun Owners Wait Up to 18 Months for Pistol Permits Despite Six-Month Law
New York law gives the NYPD License Division six months to act on a firearm license application. AmmoLand’s investigation found New Yorkers waiting two to three times longer for a pistol permit.
AmmoLand investigation has found that the NYPD is holding up some pistol permits in New York City for 12 to 18 months. If you read Roger J. Katz’s October 26 piece at AmmoLand, “NYPD Exposed for Illegal Delays in Firearms Licensing,” you already know the outline of this problem. Since then, what we have uncovered is how long some people are actually waiting for a pistol permit, and it’s a lot longer than the law allows.
Penal Law § 400.00(4-b) says the licensing officer “shall act upon any application for a license pursuant to this section within six months of the date of presentment.” There’s a narrow exception. The officer can go past six months only “upon written notice to the applicant specifically stating the reasons for any delay,” and the statute says that delay “may only be for good cause and with respect to the applicant.” When the officer finally acts, he must either deny the application “for reasons specifically and concisely stated in writing” or grant it and issue the license.
Six months. The state wrote that number itself. Pistol permit wait times are double or triple that.
So how does the NYPD get away with it? The statute sets a deadline and then never says what happens if the city misses it. As Katz wrote in the first story, “No penalty attaches for the failure of the NYPD License Division” to process an application within six months, or to explain the holdup in writing. The applicant has to follow every rule to the letter. The department, apparently, doesn’t.
Katz also wrote that a timely answer “isn’t just a matter of common courtesy. It is a compulsory legal obligation, and one the License Division routinely shirks.” Our earlier report found the License Division “sitting on thousands of unprocessed applications, many going back a couple of years,” and with a backlog like that, a year-or-more wait for a pistol permit shouldn’t surprise anybody.
Then there’s the money. Research shows that New York City applicants pay a $340 nonrefundable licensing processing fee, including an $88.75 fingerprint fee, and the required gun safety course run between $400 and $500, sometimes more. That money is gone, whether the License Division gets back to you in six months or lets your file sit for a year and a half.
Why So Many New Yorkers are Applying
Some of this is a demand story, and the demand didn’t come out of nowhere. In 2022, the Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and told New York its carry restrictions went too far. According to NYPD data Gothamist obtained in March 2024 and highlighted by Colion Noir, applications to the License Division for a residence rifle or handgun license rose 80% from 2022 to 13,369 in 2023, almost triple what the department received in 2019.
Carry applications jumped even more. The NYPD took in just 258 of them in 2019. By 2023, it was 6,751. In the first two months of 2024, Gothamist reported, carry applications had already passed the combined total for 2019, 2020, and 2021. You’d think a jump like that would push the License Division to staff up and move faster. From what we’ve seen, it hasn’t.
AmmoLand is not the only one saying so. Gothamist noted back then that the NYPD was already facing a class-action lawsuit claiming it takes too long to review applications. A separate federal suit, Milani v. New York City, No. 1:25-cv-01732, was filed in the Southern District of New York on March 3, 2025, by nine applicants represented by the Law Office of Mirel Fisch. The complaint accuses the City of “excessive, unreasonable, and unjustifiable delays in processing firearms license applications,” and it puts a familiar number on the record. According to the complaint, a License Division investigator told one applicant in a recorded call in October 2024 that it “generally takes . . . twelve to eighteen months to process.” When he asked whether that wasn’t too long, the suit says she answered, “No, no, we, that’s the general umm, the general length.”
Those are allegations, and the City hasn’t had its day in court on them. But they line up with what we found. The complaint also claims the License Division has a practice of “deciding applications 12-18 months after the applications were first presented,” which it argues makes it “inherently impossible to comply with State law.” According to the filing, lead plaintiff Robert Milani didn’t get his license until February 6, 2025, “one year, six months, and four days after he first submitted his application.” The plaintiffs are asking for compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees, and a jury trial.
Why are people lining up? Because they don’t feel safe, and it’s hard to tell them they’re wrong. The AmmoLand piece quotes data saying New York’s 2025 crime rate was “1.2 times greater than the U.S. average” and “higher than in 88.4% of U.S. cities,” and that the last five years have brought a rise in violent crime and increasing property crime. Katz also points out that New York City is the most populous city in the country, almost 8.6 million people packed in together. The police can’t be on every block.
Think about who’s actually in that line. Maybe it’s a woman being followed home. Telling her to check back in a year and a half doesn’t help her tonight.
The Part Nobody at One Police Plaza Wants to Talk About
There’s another angle here I won’t skip. Katz wrote that, “Anecdotally, we have heard some License officers are accepting bribes merely to do what State law mandates from them, timely processing of handgun licenses.”
Katz was careful to call that anecdotal, and so am I. But the License Division has been down this road before. The earlier report points back to CNN coverage from more than ten years ago quoting retired NYPD officer Stephen D’Andrilli, who said New York’s restrictive laws “have created an environment that allows a black market to exist.”
Katz and the Arbalest Quarrel say they’ve sent a letter to Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch about all this. As Katz put it, “This situation is untenable and begs for corrective legal action.” We agree with him. If the NYPD can’t act on a pistol permit in six months, the law already tells it to put the reason in writing and send it to the applicant. The statute doesn’t allow a file to sit for 12 or 18 months.
Bruen settled whether New Yorkers have the right to carry. Whether the city will let them use it on any reasonable timeline is still an open question, and we’re going to keep digging into it. If you’re stuck in the License Division backlog right now, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) needs to hear from you. Readers can file a complaint for delayed pistol permits or other licensing delays here.
About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and constitutional activist with more than 26 years of experience in networking and cybersecurity for major Fortune 100 companies. John has written about firearms, the Constitution, and cybersecurity, and has interviewed people from all walks of life. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons. Follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.