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     OCShooters.com will give general information and point you to specific web sites that are related to local, state and national gun laws, handgun laws, NY State handgun license requirements, gun safety and related information.  It is designed to assist people who want to apply for a pistol license in Orange County NY under NY law PL400 or who want to know more about the rules for the license they have and to give general handgun license information for all of New York State and information to those buying your first handgun and learning true gun control.  It is designed to promote the SAFE, LEGAL AND RESPONSIBLE use of firearms and to promote the local shooting sports, clubs, gun shows, local merchants and other hunters and shooters and Orange County clubs and groups, NY State groups and National groups such as the NRA.  The E-Newsletter will highlight gun legislation, local political news, gun lawsuits, gun safety and other information important to supporters of the Second Amendments.   Most of the people that you meet will be nice and will try their best to help you.  Good Luck and please e-mail me with any comments.  
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THIS PAGE IS NOT INTENDED TO REPLACE THE NY STATE POLICE RECERTIFICATION PAGE. YOU MUST USE THE INSTRUCTIONS AND THE NY SP WEBPAGE! I ONLY MADE THIS PAGE TO ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS THAT PEOPLE HAVE THAT ARE NOT ADDRESSED ON THE OFFICIAL NY SP PAGES AND TO PROVIDE THE PARTS OF THE LAW THAT ARE RELATED TO THE RECERTIFICATION.

NEW LAW
AS OF 9/1/2022 RECERTIFICATION MUST BE DONE
EVERY THREE YEARS!

Pistol Permit Recertification

If your handgun permit was issued before 1/15/2013 you must recertify
your pistol permit even though it is a life time permit.

NO ONE IS EXEMPT OR GRANDFATHERED!
IF YOU FAIL TO RECERTIFY AND DO NOT SURRENDER YOUR PERMIT AND ALL HANDGUNS TO THE POLICE, WHEN THEY COME TO PICK UP YOUR HANDGUNS THEY WILL TAKE ALL OF YOUR GUNS INCLUDING ALL RIFLES AND SHOTGUN AND THEY WILL BE DESTROYED AND YOU WILL HAVE LITTLE OR NO LEGAL RECOURSE. AS OF 2/1/2018 12:00:01 AM IF YOU FAIL TO RECERTIFY, YOU DO NOT HAVE A HANDGUN LICENSE AND ARE THEREFORE A FELON SUBJECT TO ARREST AND A MINIMUM OF 3 1/2 YEARS IN JAIL AND IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU TO OWN ANY GUNS!!!

Once the police have your handguns and long guns they will be legally declared a "NUISANCE"
and be destroyed just like any unregistered handgun in NY is.

If you were issued a handgun permit after 1/15/2013, you will have to recertify THREE years after the permit was issued. Even though the NY State Police sent out hundreds of thousands of letters notifying license holders that they had to recertify, the State Police did not send letters to everyone and NY law does not exempt you if you did not get a letter.

WHAT IF I NEVER CHANGED MY ADDRESS ON MY LICENSE?

     One of the incorrect statements being made, (I fell for it also,) is that if you recertify and you never changed your address as required by NY law your license will be revoked. This is NOT TRUE! This is what the section of PL400.00(10-b) states: "If the New York state police discover as a result of the recertification process that a licensee failed to provide a change of address, the New York state police shall not require the licensing officer to revoke such license."

     NY PL 400.00(9) does contain: "Notification of any change of residence shall be made in writing by any licensee within ten days after such change occurs, and a record of such change shall be inscribed by such licensee on the reverse side of his or her license." If your Judge does decide to do something they can but I would hope that they would not do anything and I don't know of anyone who has ever had their license revoked because they failed to change their address though I am sure that this is not true in NYC and other anti-gun areas and with some anti-gun Judges.

Recertify VS Renew

The recertification process only verifies that all of the information on you application and license including any changes that have been made since you were issued your last license is correct. YOUR LICENSE WILL NOT BE REVIEWED BY YOUR ISSUING AUTHORITY. If you were "Renewing" your license your issuing authority, in most of NY one of your county Judges, would review your license and reapprove the NY license and make your you meet the new rquirements. NY City, Long Island and Westchester are the only places that your license will be renewed.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

  • NY lawmakers are paranoid and want to know where all handguns are at all times and who has them.
  • The NY Pistol Permit is a lifetime license and many people who were issued a license many decades ago have moved in state or out of state or have died and the NY lawmakers want to make sure that they know who is where and what they have. (My,) Past experience has shown that probably less than 40% of the "active" handgun license holders in each county are still alive and living in the same county the license was issued in. The rest have died or moved to another address in NY or another state. (Remember all of the million + people who have left NY in the past few years? Many of them had a Pistol Permit but never surrendered their permit or notified their local Pistol License Department of their new address.)
  • Anyone want to take a bet that 100% of all of the county clerks in all of the counties in NY have 100% of the time sent the required duplicate paperwork that was 100% accurate to the NY State Police as required by NY law since NY started issuing lifetime licenses? No takers? (I know even on my license some of the model numbers and calibers were not correct.)
  • Legally there is no justification to ask the courts to prevent the recertification. When the NY State Rifle and Pistol Association brought their lawsuit against the NY SAFE Act this is the one thing that they did not contest and rightfully so. How can anyone say that NY cannot legally require that their handgun license data base be correct?
Do you really want to have the local SWAT Team break into your house in the middle of the night because the serial number on the paperwork was reversed and no one caught the error and a gun with that serial number with your name attached ended up at a mass murder location?

Could NY have done this another way?

Of Course! The issuing authority, in most of NY one or more of your local county Judges, have always had the authority to review all handgun  licenses at any time. The Judges could have sent a letter to each Pistol License Holder at any interval that they wanted and if the letter came back the Judge could ask the Police to find out what was going on. Normally I would guess that the police could find out from their desk on their computer in just a few minutes by checking drivers licenses and other data bases they have access to. Can you guess who already does something like this? Do you remember getting a post card from your County Board of Elections? They send out cards once or twice a year to registered active voters and if they get the card back as "Moved or undeliverable" they take your name off of the voting rolls. If it was a mistake you can still vote, you just have to use a paper ballot. (They will not try to put you in jail for 3 1/2 years.)

THE LAW AND OTHER STUFF

WHERE DOES THIS COME FROM?

     All of this goes back to the passage of the NY SAFE Act. You have to remember the difference between NY and almost all of the rest of the country is that most other states allow you to own a handgun without getting prior permission from the state. Some states do require you to get pre-approval to buy any gun and some require prior approval just for a handgun and there are other variation but as far as I know only NY, and possibly one other state, makes it illegal for anyone to touch a handgun unless they first get permission from the state. Under the 2022 CCI act you are allowed to fire a handgun as part of a class. If you don’t have a license you are in violation of sections of NY Penal Law 265 and can be arrested.

WHERE IS IT THE LAW?

     The section of NY law that deals with recertification is in NY Penal Law 400.00(10-b), (see below,) with the most relevant part being: “Failure to recertify shall act as a revocation of such license.” No “ifs, ands or buts,” if you don’t recertify on time or your submitted paperwork has problems you lose your license. The law DOES NOT CONTAIN any exception clause or grandfather clause. What will happen if you don’t recertify? Look at the NY State Police Field Guide, (Page 12,):

V. 1.  … Failure to recertify acts as a revocation of the license by operation of law.

EFFECT ON POLICE Removal of weapons not surrendered

     If the license and weapons are not surrendered, they will be removed by a police officer and declared a nuisance. At that point, the person would lose the ability to lawfully transfer the weapon. If a person becomes ineligible to hold a pistol permit, the Safe Act requires the person to surrender all firearms to police, including all rifles and shotguns for which no license or registration is required.

NY Pl 400.05
The official to whom the weapon … has subsequently been declared a nuisance … shall, at any time but at least once each year, destroy the same …

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN
TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T RECERTIFY?

     They don't know. I called the hot line on 1/2/2018 and I asked and the person said that they don't know. I did ask what would happen if a person was driving around with handgun and they had not recertified their license? The person said that if it came up, the police would know that the license holder had not recertified and they would take their gun(s).

As of 9/5/2022 no one is doing anything to anyone who has not recertified. The only thing that I have been told is that some Judges will not add another gun to a license if you don't supply them with proof of recertification but not in Orange County.

THE FULL LEGAL SECTIONS

S 400.05 Disposition of weapons and dangerous instruments, appliances and substances
    . 2. The official to whom the weapon, instrument, appliance or substance which has subsequently been declared a nuisance pursuant to subdivision one of this section is so surrendered shall, at any time but at least once each year, destroy the same or cause it to be destroyed, or render the same or cause it to be rendered ineffective and useless for its intended purpose and harmless to human life.

S 400.00 Licenses to carry, possess, repair and dispose of firearms.
10- (D) LICENSES ISSUED UNDER PARAGRAPH (F) OF SUBDIVISION TWO OF THIS SECTION SHALL BE RECERTIFIED OR RENEWED IN THE SAME FORM AND MANNER AS OTHERWISE REQUIRED BY THIS SUBDIVISION, PROVIDED HOWEVER,THAT SUCH LICENSES SHALL BE RECERTIFIED OR RENEWED EVERY THREE YEARS FOLLOWING THE ISSUANCE OF SUCH LICENSE. FOR LICENSES ISSUED PRIOR TO THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS PARAGRAPH THAT WERE ISSUED MORE THAN THREE YEARS PRIOR TO SUCH DATE, OR WILL EXPIRE IN LESS THAN ONE YEAR FROM SUCH DATE SHALL BE RECERTIFIED
OR RENEWED WITHIN ONE YEAR OF SUCH DATE.

EFFECT ON POLICE

Removal of weapons not surrendered

If the license and weapons are not surrendered, they will be removed by a police officer and declared a nuisance. At that point, the person would lose the ability to lawfully transfer the weapon.

If a person becomes ineligible to hold a pistol permit, the Safe Act requires the person to surrender all firearms to police, including all rifles and shotguns for which no license or registration is required.

FINAL WORDS

   WE ARE SCREWED BUT ONLY FOR NOW.

    As you can guess all of this is going to take thousands of man person hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars in many counties. Many people will have to reapply for a license if that is allowed and because failure to recertify would be a valid reason for a Judge to reject an application, no one can be guarantee that their Judge will be sympathetic to someone who did not recertify. It would be nice if they had included in the law some ability for people to recertify at a later date at their local county Pistol License Department but they did not so the only way to get a new handgun license is to reapply unless they just decide to ignore the law and the Judges just "reissue" the handgun license. (It will not be the first or only time the Judges or Counties have done what the want and not what is in the law.) In any event this is going to take a long time and gobs of money and the counties don't have the money or personal to do any of this in a timely manner.

     It could be worse and that is not to say it will not get worse in the future if the anti-gunners from NYC gain total control of NY and that is only a matter of time. NY City has renewable licenses every three years and it cost them $340, (yes NYSRPA already brought a lawsuit and lost.) Long Island and Westchester also have additional fees so a $10 lifetime license, free recertification and $5 or less amendments doesn't sound too bad especially when you realize it is possible for many people to get an unrestricted license in most but not all of upstate and that is almost impossible in NYC, Long Island, Westchester, Rockland counties. Don't forget that ammo background check. California has shown the way and NY could always require that you get a license to buy ammo. WILL THE LAST PRO-GUN PERSON LEAVING THE STATE --- WHO CARES?

IF YOU FIND ANY ERRORS PLEASE EMAIL ME.