CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After years of reported gun permit delays, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office settled a lawsuit from numerous gun rights activists.
The lawsuit, which was filed in November 2022, argued that the sheriff's office violated a federal rule by taking too long to process applications for concealed carry permits. The sheriff's office will pay $5,000 toward the plaintiffs' legal fees as part of the settlement. No money will be paid to the activists who filed the lawsuit.
Another condition of the settlement is the sheriff's office will ask all concealed carry permit applicants whether they've sought mental health treatment and if so, require them to list the provider. The agency will have 45 days to issue or deny the permit after reviewing any relevant records.
Paul Valone, the president of Grass Roots North Carolina, one of the groups suing the sheriff's office, compared Sheriff Garry McFadden's process of granting permits to a "whack-a-mole" game.
"He was delaying permits earlier by requiring extensive delays for fingerprinting. When we got an injunction to solve that problem, he shifted to another means of delay," Valone said. "And now he's basically flooding the Veterans Administration with mental health requests for people that never served in the military."
Earlier this year, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office made some changes to how to renew and receive a concealed carry permit, including requiring all applicants to do so in person, removing the ability for applicants to submit renewal paperwork via fax or email.
In addition to requiring all applications to be in person, MCSO also said it would stop sending mental health releases to the VA unless the applicant notes on their application that they served in the military. Larry Hyatt, the owner of Hyatt Gun Shop, said the VA wasn't doing the job quickly, which caused a backlog in applications statewide.