Concealed guns permit applications skyrocket

Perhaps driven by fears about a new president, a bad economy or a pending apocalypse, thousands of people are seeking concealed firearms permits in Utah.

According to figures provided to the Deseret News by the Bureau of Criminal Identification, a staggering 10,878 concealed firearms permits were sought in March. Compare that to the 4,412 that were sought in March 2008. In February 2008, 2,548 people sought concealed-carry permits; the number jumped to 8,142 in 2009.

BCI granted 6,028 permits last month. Some of the remaining applications are pending background checks and processing, state public safety officials said.

"We can't tell you why the numbers are going up," said Sgt. Jeff Nigbur with the Utah Department of Public Safety, which oversees BCI. "The only statutory job we have is to take the applications and issue the permits."

Concealed firearms permit instructor Clark Aposhian said some of it is driven by fears about what President Barack Obama will do when it comes to gun control.

"People who are coming into my class, they don't even own guns yet. They never had an affinity towards firearms. They certainly are not black helicopter types," said the head of the Utah Shooting Sports Council. "These are people who say, 'We'd better get it now and go buy a firearm before it's too late.' Those are the words they use."

The fears of the Obama administration's plans to reinstate gun bans have driven firearm sales nationwide. At a gun show at the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy just weeks after Obama was elected, firearms dealers pointed to the Democratic administration as the reason for a spike in gun sales.

Other factors include fear about rising crime rates in a down economy (word of an ammunition shortage has already driven a frenzy of ammo sales) and even concerns about the need to be self-reliant — in the most desperate of times. The comments are coming from people not prone to hysteria, Aposhian said.

"There are a fair number of people that say this, that perhaps there will be an incident or period of time due to a natural disaster combined with weather combined with a bad political situation," he said. "Normally we would hear that from the apocalyptic, black helicopter-type of people — but I'm hearing it from regular folks."

The state's concealed firearms permit process has been criticized as being too easy, allowing people from out of state to apply after sitting through a class taught by a firearms instructor who has only been certified in Utah.