300,000 Hoosiers have gun permits

July 11, 2004
Indianapolis Star

Indiana second only to New York in number per 1,000 adult residents, Star survey shows

By Mark Nichols and John R. O'Neill
[email protected]

In May, when pizza deliveryman Ronald B. Honeycutt was confronted by a gun-toting robber, he drew his own 9 mm and pulled the trigger, pumping more than 10 bullets into the Indianapolis man, killing him.

Two months before, when a neighbor came after Daniel L. Floyd with an ax handle, the Johnson County man fired his 9 mm handgun, sending one bullet into the neighbor's neck and two into his torso. The man died.

Like 300,000 other Hoosiers, the two men had permits to carry handguns in public. In neither case were charges filed.

Nearly one in 15 Indiana adults have gun permits, which they can get once they turn 18 -- and without going through any training. The state is second only to New York in the number of gun permits per 1,000 adults.

The Indiana State Police -- and, often, local police agencies -- check the backgrounds of applicants for any criminal convictions that would disqualify them.

Unlike some states, Indiana doesn't make you take any training or prove you know how to handle a gun.

You do, however, have to say why you want a permit. Most people say it's for personal protection, though most will never actually fire their weapon in self-defense.

A few, however, like Floyd, do.

"He came out swinging," Floyd said of his deadly encounter with Bruce D. Mills.

"I asked him a dozen times to stop."

Mills was breaking windows in a vacant mobile home next door. Floyd and his fiancee heard the noise and went outside to see what it was. Before he knew it, he said, Mills was coming at him.

"He could have beaten me to death," Floyd said.

"Thousands and thousands of people in the state have firearms and never have to use them. And to be honest, I wish I were one of them."

Click on the "Read More..." link below for MUCH more.

It's the law

To get an Indiana permit, you don't have to prove you need a gun, but state law outlines eight reasons to deny a permit.

Applicants are fingerprinted and pay a $15 processing fee and a $10 application fee; the $10 goes to the police firearms training fund.

"If they ask, we have to give it -- unless we can prove they don't deserve it," said Capt. Jimmie D. Durnil, deputy commander of the records division of the State Police, which includes the firearms section.

Last year, about 76,000 permits were issued, and so far this year, about 35,000 have been handed out. They're good for four years.

Many permit holders list addresses with Central Indiana ZIP codes. Six of the 10 ZIP code areas with the most permit-holders are in Marion County and the adjacent counties.

In the first five months of the year, 3,391 permit applications were filed in Marion County. Of those, 254 were denied.

Marion County typically has the largest single number of applications of any county at any given time, said Sandy Cottey, supervisor of the Indianapolis Police Department's firearms records unit, which handles permit applications for all of Marion County.

The process in some larger U.S. cities is much more restrictive. In California, for instance, sheriffs have a lot more say over whether to grant permits in their counties. In Los Angeles County, there were only 1,391 active carry permits as of Dec. 31, 2003 -- out of about 6.8 million adult residents.

Some states have a "concealed carry" permit, requiring you to keep the gun under wraps.

Indiana sets no such limits. You don't have to hide your weapon.

You can't, however, carry it just anywhere. Private businesses have the right to keep them out, and you don't want to try to bring one on an airplane. Still, you can carry it many places -- even places a lot of people wish you wouldn't.

Durnil said he's been summoned to restaurants at which some patrons were unnerved by the sight of a diner wearing a weapon. But if the restaurant allows it, and "if they have a permit, there's not much you can tell them," he said.

Still, he does make suggestions.

"If they're sitting at a table, try to sit with your weapon toward the wall, so you're not exposing it as much."

Weapons training

Indiana doesn't require people to take any training before obtaining a permit to carry a gun.

That's a policy even some gun owners disagree with.

Daniel Floyd, for one.

"I think it's a good idea," he said. "It would ensure they have at least a basic competency. That would make people feel safer to know they didn't just hand out permits to anybody."

He has no formal training, but he grew up around guns and knew how to handle one long before he got his permit to carry one. He worries that not all gun owners will take the time to learn what they're doing.

But with no training requirement in the law, there is no way to track the number of permit holders who take the time -- and money -- to learn to handle, maintain and shoot their weapons.

Ohio passed a permit law just this year allowing residents to carry concealed weapons. It requires 12 hours of weapons training to get the permit (10 hours in a classroom and two on a shooting range).

Rep. Jim Aslanides, a Republican from Coshocton, Ohio, sponsored the bill and became the first Ohioan to get a carry permit. Before the new law, anyone who could pass a federal background check to purchase a handgun could carry that weapon openly in public in Ohio.

"You'd be surprised how many people here who hate, fear guns, still think that the people who are going to commit crimes are going to get a permit," he said. "They think we're licensing criminals."

So far, about 40,000 Ohioans have obtained permits under the new law. Aslanides wonders if the cost of training is keeping some applicants away.

That same training requirement now means that most states' permits, including Indiana's, aren't valid in Ohio.

Mike Hilton, 51, owner of Pop Guns Trading Post, 30 S. Post Road, would stand to make more money on firearms training if Indiana required it, since he offers a range of classes. But even he's not sure requiring such training is a good idea. Too much government intrusion, he said.

On the other hand, he does think more people need training; he's seen too many customers playfully aim unloaded guns at each other, and cringed as TV and movie actors fire side-armed.

As it is, maybe 5 percent of his customers take training at his store, and most of those are women, Hilton said.

"The biggest issue is people who already have permits. Those people don't want to go through the trouble of taking classes."

A better approach, Hilton said, is prevention, such as the gun-safety talks he gives at schools.

"I've been in some schools where kids want to tell me stories about people they know who have been shot," he said. "It's really sad. We teach them (in school) don't play with matches. We should do the same with guns."

Subject to review

To conduct background checks, the State Police rely on an Indiana criminal history database.

They also check the names of applicants against a national database maintained by the FBI.

Just a few years ago, no national check was conducted -- and the information in the state database was incomplete.

Now, in part because of ProsLink, a computer network linking nearly all of the state's 90 prosecutors' offices, the state database contains a lot more information about criminal convictions.

ProsLink has been supplying information to the state database for about three years, and State Police say that's having an effect.

Last year, 2,360 permits were denied or revoked. So far this year, that number already is at 2,126.

State Police officials also urge local police agencies to report arrest information. Even without a conviction, an arrest and pending criminal charges could be enough to revoke a permit while the case goes to trial.

"There are charges being filed right now that would be grounds for us to suspend the permit -- but we don't know," said Bruce D. Bryant, an administrative assistant in the State Police firearms section.

When the State Police find out about charges being filed, they send the permit-holder a certified letter and schedule an administrative law hearing.

That's what brought Carmen Walker to the Indiana Government Center North building Thursday morning.

In April, he shot and wounded a man because he thought the man was going for a gun.

Walker, 41, was sitting in his car on the Eastside when a man asked for a ride. When he refused, the man spat at him, then backed up and acted as if he were reaching for a pistol, Walker said.

Walker grabbed his .38-caliber revolver and fired, wounding the man in the neck.

Walker fled, called 911 and returned to the scene to surrender.

He faces felony battery charges.

Even if it cost him his permit for now, Walker thinks the review process that snared him is a good thing.

"It should be done," he said. In fact, he wonders why his permit wasn't just taken away at the scene by the investigating officers.

"If I were the type of person who were doing this intentionally, I think it takes too long for the license to be revoked," he said.

The enhanced background checks also caught John Brown, of Evansville. He'd been approved for a permit before, but when he tried to get another one, the State Police found a felony conviction for bookmaking in California -- back in 1965.

"I simply forgot all about that," Brown, 75, said at his hearing Thursday morning.

Afterward, Brown, too, said he's glad the police are trying to be thorough. He'll find out in about a week whether his application will be approved or denied.

Maj. Jerome Ezell of the State Police serves as prosecutor at the hearings. Durnil serves as judge.

The most popular reason for denying or revoking is documented evidence of what state law calls "a propensity for violent or emotionally unstable conduct."

And one sure way to look unstable is to ride your bike around town with a pistol on your hip, like one guy in Richmond did.

"It's legal -- it's just not showing very much common sense," Ezell said. "He admitted it. He said he was doing it to provoke the police."

At his hearing, Durnil let him keep his permit. But Durnil also suggested he maybe show a little more restraint.

If incidents are relatively old -- say, four or five years -- they are harder to use as a basis to deny a permit, Ezell said.

"We don't want to deny just arbitrarily," he said. "Hoosiers have a right to carry a gun."

Call Star reporter John R. O'Neill at (317) 444-6233.

Gun permits by ZIP code

A Star analysis of gun permits in Indiana shows high concentrations of permit holders listing ZIP codes in rural southern areas of the state. Seven of the 10 ZIP code areas with the highest rates of permits per 1,000 adults are south of Indianapolis. But heavily populated Central Indiana ZIP codes have the highest total number of permits. Six of the 10 ZIP code areas with the highest permit totals are in Marion and adjoining counties.

Gun permits by state

Indiana's rate ranks second among states that require permits for residents to carry weapons, based on the most current data obtained by The Star. Laws concerning weapons permits vary among states, making it difficult to compare the number of Indiana permits with those in other states.

Notes:

• Ohio and Missouri began issuing permits this year. Ohio's total is a Þrst-year estimate. Colorado began issuing permits consistently in 2003.

• Georgia's rate is based on criminal background checks submitted to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in 2003.

• Kentucky's rate is based on data that include suspended and provisional permits.

• Vermont has no permit requirements. Anyone who can legally own a Þrearm can carry one. Residents may still obtain permits in those states to carry weapons in other states, or to be exempt from background checks when purchasing weapons.

• Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska and Wisconsin do not issue concealed-carry permits. It is illegal for private citizens to openly carry or conceal loaded handguns in public in those states.

• Maine's rate is based on state police data that include resident and nonresident permits. Some towns issue their own permits.

• New York rate reflects 1998 data. Pennsylvania rate reßects permits issued from 1999-2003. North Carolina rate reßects permits issued from December 1995 to December 2003.

• Statewide permit totals for Alabama, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon, Virginia and West Virginia are not available.

Source: Star research and census data; compiled and analyzed by Mark Nichols

Related Story:
States' gun laws are not equal
Kentucky and Michigan recognize Indiana permits; Ohio, Illinois have more restrictive regulations.