mikka1

I wish my P2Ps were ready :-( Kentucky seems to have SP-01 in stock, but they sell them with 18-rd mags. I was unable to reach them on the phone today, so will try to ask here - if an online store has a gun with non-NJ-compliant mag, what are the possible outcomes of contacting it: a) "F**k off, man, we don't care, we just won't ship this to your state in any form. Move somewhere else. Period" b) "Yes, we can replace 18-rd mags with 10-rd mags that are in stock as well. This will cost you extra $XXX" c) "Yes, we can pin 18-rd mags and make them 15rd. This will cost you extra $YYY for gunsmithing" d) "We can ship it to your local FFL if you can find FFL that will agree to pin it for you - it will be between you and your local dealer to decide on how much it will cost for you" e) "We can ship it without mags at all and you will solve this later on your own" From your experience (as I've never bought a gun before, LOL) what outcomes are possible/likely/impossible? I really want CZ75 to be my first gun :-))

Bringing this thread back to life - yesterday I discovered at Bloomfield PD that the only thing missing in my file is a mental health check (supposedly from Essex County, but might me from Monmouth as well as I lived there for some time). I am on day 72 of my initial FID process and was just wondering if I am the only one SOL now or if this is still a problem for many. If so, any updates on how long it takes recently to clear mental health checks? Thanks

1. Application type (FID/permit w/ existing FID). Initial FID + 2 P2P 2. Police Department where you applied. Bloomfield PD (Bloomfield, NJ (Essex County)) 3. Name of the person you dealt with at the PD. A very nice lady in records bureau right next to the entrance (I think her name is Patty, but I'm not sure) 4. Time taken to issue FID and/or permit. Submitted on July 16 2013; both of my out-of-state references received requests from PD days after my initial app and turned them around in less than a week; fingerprints taken on July 24 2013; Both of my references received calls from Detective in the beginning of November; FID and 2P2Ps are signed on 11/7/2013, received on 11/13/2013 (almost 4 months in total) 5. Documents required by the PD (aside from the standard application and the mental health release form). Two reference letters (despite a PD "requirement" for both references to be NJ residents, nobody objected to two references from other states) 6. Notes - anything pertaining to the application process (unforeseen difficulties, chief of police calling your home, you hiring an attorney, etc.). Apparently huge delay has been caused by missing mental health check request to Essex county Adjuster's office. In retrospect I understand that I should have started checking with Nancy Delia (an officer in charge of Essex mental health checks) much earlier - it would have saved me at least a month or maybe even more. Once all documents landed on Detective's desk (closer to the end of October) it took them only 2 or 3 more weeks to contact my references over the phone once again and then print & sign FID and P2Ps After getting FID and 2 P2Ps I immediately applied for another 3 P2Ps. I was told that the Chief is fine with extending permits for another 90 days if they are expired. P.S. Last edits to this made on Nov 15th, 2013

===== FYI on timelines ===== (will update this post once I get the stuff): 2013/09/12 - emailed a 2-year initial application form to GSSF 2013/09/13 - GLOCK PROFESSIONAL INC charged my credit card for $60 (...) (updated) 2013/09/28 (or around that date, can't remember exactly) - got my welcome kit - membership card + 1 detachable coupon, GSSP baseball cap, a couple of stickers, Glock magazine and several other publications re GSSF competitions (maybe I missed something). Coupon was valid until 2015 (I thought it will be only valid until the end of 2013)

I'm not sure if I'm stuck at the mental health check, but I started my process in Bloomfield (Essex county as well) in mid-July, both of my references received letters from Blfd PD after 2-3 days (even before I completed my fingerprinting), but I haven't heard anything from them yet. Frankly, I haven't even tried to follow this up with them as there are examples here in a thread about timings by PDs of Bloomfield PD processing apps for ~6 months. Lady in my PD when I was applying there advised me to realistically prepare for 2-4 months process...

Thanks everyone, just e-mailed my application for 2 years membership to GSSF. Spoke with a very nice lady on the phone before that, she told me that it currently takes anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks to receive a kit from them which is perfectly fine if true. I'm more worried about my FID now :-) BTW, just out of curiosity, if they give away handguns as prizes on their competitions, how do they go around policies of NJ and some other states with P2Ps and other stuff required to take posession over a firearm? :-) Or is it just a nice expression "they give away guns" and they actually give vouchers or any other equivalents?

Yes, I read that I have to sign up at least for 2 years ($60) in order to get a coupon "right away". Anyway, $470 final is better than $535 online + transfer fee + NICS etc. So is it really 3 months that they take to send all the papers? ("welcome kit", coupon etc.?) Or is it based on some other limitations? I still don't have a FID and based on some reports here it might take my local PD up to 6 months to issue it :-) ...

Almost 2 months into the wait for FID & 2 P2Ps I already started to look into handgun options. I am relatively sure that the first one I'll get will be Glock 19, so I started comparing offers for it online and finally ran into GSSF website with its "members only" pricing for 1 Glock per year. It lists Glock 19 there for $425 which is nowhere near any other offers I have looked into even after adding NJ sales tax (e.g. budsgunshop.com sells it for ~$535). The only thing that bother me is if it is really that easy to find a local FFL dealer that will honor this price in NJ? I tried to look for a Glock dealer at http://us.glock.com, and it seems that there is a plenty of them in NJ even pretty close to where I live, but I'd rather prefer to ask you here if you had positive experience with this GSSF pricing. Seems like a sweet deal to subscribe for 2 years and have a chance to buy 2 Glocks (one now, one - next year) with more than $100 effective discount on each... And another question - how long do those GSSF applications usually take? If I send the form now, when can I realistically expect all the stuff from them to come? (I can obviously call them and ask, but again it's interesting how it works in reality) And as far as we started on GSSF - are those memberships really good for anything else except for buying a handgun? Thanks a lot!

W2MC, fully agree, can't say better! IMO, he is nothing even close to being called a hero or a patriot, just a scumbag willing to get as much media attention as he can now (sorry if that sounds rude, that's just what I think). It's just easily seen by the portions of information he is revealing, the way how he does that (he clearly doesn't care about the nature of what he's showing, he only cares about keeping as much noise as possible around him) and the whole media coverage he has been getting while he was (presumably) sitting in the transit area of Moscow airport. Being a Russian national by birth myself and American resident by choice I actually find it particularly insulting how he plays the strings of lifelong tension between two countries just to benefit by himself out of that.

+1 to all what Nickjc mentioned. I bought several inexpensive Z-Modo systems from cctvhotdeals.com. I actually found cheap CCTV cameras to be the worst part of the setup, but let's face it - can you really expect any decent video quality from ~$20 unit in outdoor casing, with IR illumination (absolutely crappy - makes things even less visible in most instances) and 50ft cable already included? :-) Nonetheless they somehow do what they are intended for. A mere presence of the camera can deter some bad guys. In one of the locations I combined a camera with motion activated light - IMO this works even better.

Yes, I know really well that such a technology essentially *works* because spending lot of time in different European countries I often get parking / speeding tickets captured by speedcams or "Parkons" (new high-tech parking enforcement technology in big Russian cities - basically a car equipped with 360 degree camcorders and linked in real time with parking meters). My point was rather that e.g. passports when they are handed over to the border control official give 99.9% of correct recognition even in an automated mode (RFID or Machine-readable section). Contrary to that license plates can be naturally (or - which is even worse - intentionally) obscured / mutilated by a marker, paint, foil or even piece of mud or snow or a leave. If a tricky guy doesn't get his extra parking ticket because of the leave on his plate I wouldn't give a damn, but if the overall matter of national security would (at least in its small part) rely on such a technology I'd feel rather uncomfortable and think of my tax money not being spent well. BTW, speaking about license plates I came across an article in one of Russian newspapers not a long ago about Russian traffic authorities (somewhat similar to DMV / MVC in the US) suggesting to embed RFID transponders in all newly issued licence plates for exactly this reason. They claim that it would make it easier to collect tolls / parking and enforce speed limits, but tinfoil can adepts know that Russian Big Brother is sometimes several steps ahead his Western colleagues (fortunately or unfortunately - depending on what side of the world you look from and what ideology you follow :-) ) - the automated translation of that article can be found here (but rather bad translation...) This is just my IMO obviously.

I really doubt those would work reliably enough. One of the airports in Eastern Europe has a similar plate recognition system installed to fight parking fare cheaters (and probably for safety reasons as well). When you approach the gate you need to take a plastic card with a magnetic stripe similar to NYC MetroCard and if you look on its reverse side you will see your license plate printed there... well.. you should, at least. The thing is that during winter times or heavy rain this system constantly makes mistakes recognizing plates (can put down C11... instead of O17). OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is far from perfect especially in real world situations. Let alone bad guys can just use a stolen car or simply stolen plates...

Just a couple of back of the envelope calcs... >>In 2012 they completed over 3000 mental health apps for firearms >>In Jan of 2013, they received 3000 mental health requests, and staffing was cut from 5 people to 2 There were ~250 business days in 2012. Thus they had 3000 / 250 = 12 applications per day on average for the whole office. They had 5 people employed. Assuming (but most likely that's not 100% correct) that those applications are all that they do, they had 2.4 applications per person per business day. With an average working hours of ~7.5 a day that would mean around 3 hours of work time per one application to be processed. I don't have any ready to use workload efficiency benchmarks from the public sector now, but my gut feeling tells me that 3 hours per 1 mental health application is a little bit too much unless they manually call every single hospital in the area or go through multiple handwritten registries. Frankly, I'm not surprised that they got their "staff optimization" with those kind of numbers...

Hi, boo, I am in the same boat basically - still waiting for my FID, so was unable to rent at gun4hire. I started a thread not a long ago - http://njgunforums.com/forum/index.php/topic/58188-gun-ranges-in-northern-nj-that-rent-firearms-to-single-visitors/ - and got some advice on other ranges that don't have this policy. Maybe that will help, though they are pretty far from Clifton. I'd be more than happy to go together, but I'm now abroad for business possibly until the end of August or even further, so unfortunately can't help really soon, but if it's still of your interest in September and later on (but hope you'll get your FID by that time if you've already started the process), I'd love to go together. BTW, I'm from Bloomfield.

And another surprising update - as I wrote above I applied for FID either on Tuesday or Wednesday (can't remember already :-) ) and this weekend one of my references in NC already received a questionnaire from Bloomfield PD. This is really surprising for me as I have not even went through fingerprinting yet (scheduled for this Wednesday). If PD guys work so fast (and so far it seems they do), I'm just curious what exactly is a bottleneck that makes the whole process lag for 3-4 and even more months...

Many thanks for your replies. So, do I understand right that potential hassle of changing address on Utah CCW (especially when moving to the state with reciprocity agreements with Utah) is comparable to getting it from scratch while already having "local" permit to carry? If so, then I would agree that might not make too much sense to start now. Other than that, FID process is started already and this is obviously not 100% that I move that soon, so might still be good to have. P.S. I didn't really want to use the word "escape", but with constantly increasing rent, new taxes (like "Amazon" tax), increasing unemployment and other socio-economic trends of times this might be the right word to say :-( I wish it was only about firearms licensing :-)...

Hi all, I am now in the beginning of FID processing so I still have at least 2-3 months (maybe even more) before I see my FID and P2Ps, but several questions already came to my mind. Maybe you'll be able to help me to answer at least some of them: 1) I am hoping thinking of moving out of state in the next 6-8 months (most likely around Christmas time, maybe a bit later). Not yet sure where I will be heading - a lot will depend on the job, but already have a couple of possible destinations in mind. With extremely long FID processing times I would not be surprised if by the time they make a final decision I will already be a resident of another state. What will happen then with my FID? - will it just be destroyed and the process abandoned? or - will there be a formal denial on the grounds of not being a NJ resident anymore? or - will it be somehow modified to a FID of out of state resident? In fact, similar question is what if I move out *after* I get my FID? (and possibly buy a handgun) - is there any good info on what happens when a gun owner moves from one state to another? 2) Transporting firearms in NJ. As far as I understand, if I have a FID and legally own firearms I can more or less safely transport them in the trunk of the car if I go from home to e.g. the range. But the thing is that I don't own a car - parking is a mess in that part of NJ I live in, public transportation at the same time is relatively good, so I use buses, trains and my bike for short distances. How can I transport firearms to the range if I go there by bike? Is just putting a firearm to the backback in a closed container separately from ammo enough? Generally, let's imagine I live 2 miles from a range and I want to walk there - what are the requirements to transporting a firearm in that case? 3) Utah CCW and moving out of state. I wanted to add a CCW permit and given its potential processing time I was also thinking about starting it now. Getting back to my potential move, how it will impact my Utah CCW? - if I move to the state that HAS the reciprocity agreement with Utah thus requiring me to obtain local permit to carry before I can obtain Utah CCW, how the process will look like? To make it more specific, if I move to NC (which I really want to), will my Utah CCW become void the moment I become a NC resident until I provide them with NC permit? - generally, how difficult it is to change address on Utah CCW? - if I move before I get my Utah CCW, will I have a chance to amend it before even getting it? Or once you send your paperwork it's already done and you have to wait for it to come exactly to the address you listed? Thanks in advance!

Just a quick update - finally made my way to Bloomfield PD today with an application for FID&P2P with both references out of state. Asked again if it was a statewide requirement - the lady told that it wasn't and generally if I didn't know anyone in the NJ well, I could use out of state references without any issues. So I did. Generally the whole process was nicer than I expected. Still was warned that it takes at least several months to process it. Fingerprinting next week. Hopefully will get my FID before Christmas :-)

I'm already working on it - apparently not that easy (and very long!) in Bloomfield. Some people in the relevant thread reported up to 5 months wait time. Well, as I mentioned, I'm not trying to blame anyone (sorry if it sounded like I was trying to do so - I didn't mean to). I'm just looking for short-term (until I get my FID and then my own firearm) practical (not requiring too much hassle) solution, that's it. Thanks, looks really good. Will also add to my shortlist. sof, thanks a lot for your offer about CZ. I would really love to get to know someone from the forum, so if I happen to plan to go to RSTP on July 15th (Monday), I'll PM you in advance and maybe see you there.

I live in Bloomfield, NJ (few miles from Newark). As I don't have a firearm yet and I need a range with rentals it already seems to narrow the choice significantly. Well, Easton is indeed quite far, but manageable (I don't own a car as I don't really need it on everyday basis, but I rent it for a day or two almost every other week, so no big deal to get there). I will most likely go there in a week or so when I come back from a short trip. I have quite limited shooting experience, so initially I plan to stick to 9mm semi-automatic handguns. I tried shooting some of them while being abroad (in a very IPSC-oriented shooting club) and so far the one I liked most was CZ-75, but as far as I see it's hard to find it here even to buy it, let alone rent. I want to try Glock 17/19 once again as I was not much impressed by them at first (they seemed to lightweight for me with hardly manageable recoil, but that was probably just first impression of inexperienced shooter). So, nothing really fancy or extraordinary - I think I'll be fine with any rental options :-) I'd still say that it's hard for me to imagine what kind of trouble a person must be in to think about taking his life either the "good Roman way" or any other way (except maybe for terminal illness in its final stages but even this is questionable - many people fight hard for every second of their lives...). Apart from that, I don't want razor blades and champagne to become controlled goods not sold to single visitors of the store, so let's not spread the idea :-)))

Thanks, would very much appreciate it. RSTP range is closer to me than Heritage Guild in Easter, PA, so if it works out it might become choice #1 for me. Thanks, I called them already today - they confirmed that I can rent being alone - so far it's the only range that I know for sure about. Just wanted to see if there's something else closer to me.

I wanted to avoid this kind of discussion as it is counterproductive anyway (as I mentioned before, it's up to the range owner to decide who he/she wants to see and who he/she doesn't), but on the other hand even quick googling gives out horror stories about mom blowing out her son's brain and than hers at one of the ranges, or two sisters renting two handguns and trying to commit suicides simultaneously, or a retired military person coming to a range to blow his head off. What is common in all those cases is that those visitors would have technically been fully in line with some of these policies - in first two cases visitors were not alone; military guy most likely had all permits / paperwork etc. The sad thing is that most likely you can't really prevent a suicide of a determined person. In fact, I lost a friend some time ago who (supposedly) took his life by jumping out from the window. Unfortunately those things happen and it's hard or even nearly impossible to prevent them by any restrictive measures. I suggest to cut this kind of debates here, really :-) My initial question was much simplier and much less phylosophical - who still, despite all those sad events, rents to "single walk-ins". One place already found for sure, another one - need to confirm. Maybe somewhere else?

Thanks for your input. To your last statement - ideally I don't want to push it too hard. I'd say it this way - while I think that this is a vitally important right in general to be armed, at this point I'm not ready to get into a serious legal fight with my local law enforcement over this. I don't want any suspicious / derogatory marks on me as I am still a permanent resident, but not a citizen here - maybe I'm overcautious and one is not linked to another one at all, but in the end of the day I'd better pack my stuff and move out of NJ to a more gun-friendly state. Moreover, I'm thinking about moving out for quite some time already because of increasing rent, not a perfect neighboorhood etc - all non-gun related matters... So I'll try it gently If it doesn't work the first time - I'll try again. If it doesn't work again - then I'll be seriously thinking if this place is a right place

I'm a ittle jealous if you have friends who are easily available to go to the range, let's say, 3pm Wednesday Unfortunately most of my friends work normal hours (unlike me with my job that might make me free at 3pm on a weekday and let me sit at the desk until midnight on Saturday...), so that's why I just consider this obvious option as unpractical in most cases for me. Frankly speaking this just drives me nuts. I already see that one day I'll come to Alamo next to some airport in the middle of nowhere and I'll be told that they can't rent me a car if I'm alone and I'm male because this is a requirement of their insurance company. Walmart will not sell me kitchen knives, Home Depot will not sell me ropes and Walgreens will not sell me Advil... :fuck: In addition to this the doorman at my corporate building in Manhattan (which is, I think, 46 floors high) will not let me in the elevator going up without signing a waiver every time I enter the building... All because all of those things and establishments can potentially be used for commiting a suicide... Just joking obviously, but that's essentially how I really feel it

Just to update - I wrote to legislation@... (NJ2AS email listed on their website), but no answer yet. Will probably go to my local PD next week and ask to speak to a Detective or whoever handles FID applications as I really want to list 2 of my former colleagues in the FID application and one of them lives in MA, and another one - in NC...