Petition to the Governor and the Texas DPS.

[Prankster707]

I've been on the forum for a few days, as I've just recently finished all my Concealed Handgun requirements for getting the license, and there's been a few things that I've noticed:

Several people have been waiting for longer than the four to six weeks set by law, and this honestly kind of both disappointed me and kind of made me angry. It seems that the Texas DPS in Austin is either understaffed, staffed by incompetent employees or is just in need of a plain, good ole overhaul. I've seen posts on here of people calling and being told that they didn't send in their CHL-100, or the email team had "forgotten" to send their documents over to the licensing people, among other completely ridiculous and preventable measures. I'm not sure about you, but this is completely unacceptable for any business, organization or government entity to do. I had foolishly expected better out of the great state of Texas, but I guess I was wrong.

[The Annoyed Man]

I've been on the forum for a few days, as I've just recently finished all my Concealed Handgun requirements for getting the license, and there's been a few things that I've noticed:

Several people have been waiting for longer than the four to six weeks set by law, and this honestly kind of both disappointed me and kind of made me angry. It seems that the Texas DPS in Austin is either understaffed, staffed by incompetent employees or is just in need of a plain, good ole overhaul. I've seen posts on here of people calling and being told that they didn't send in their CHL-100, or the email team had "forgotten" to send their documents over to the licensing people, among other completely ridiculous and preventable measures. I'm not sure about you, but this is completely unacceptable for any business, organization or government entity to do. I had foolishly expected better out of the great state of Texas, but I guess I was wrong.

I'm not quite sure this will help us at all, but I figured that it was worth a shot, and heck, I'm American so I'm going to use the rights that my father and forefathers fought, sweated and bled for. So if you would, give my petition a signature and hopefully Mr. Abbott will continue to prove that he is, indeed, pro-gun rights.

https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-se ... n-licenses" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Please let me know if the link doesn't work, thanks again!

The law allows 60 days.......which turns out to be 8 weeks......not the 4-6 weeks you said. Welcome to the forum. I do NOT mean this comment to sound disrespectful, but you sound to me like you're angry out of proportion to the offense.....if there is an offense..... and I would suggest that you might want to calm down a bit before you start carrying. You have a right to carry, but with rights comes responsibilities, among which are a responsibility to stay calm and keep a sense of perspective if you're going to go about strapped.

[Prankster707]

I've been on the forum for a few days, as I've just recently finished all my Concealed Handgun requirements for getting the license, and there's been a few things that I've noticed:

Several people have been waiting for longer than the four to six weeks set by law, and this honestly kind of both disappointed me and kind of made me angry. It seems that the Texas DPS in Austin is either understaffed, staffed by incompetent employees or is just in need of a plain, good ole overhaul. I've seen posts on here of people calling and being told that they didn't send in their CHL-100, or the email team had "forgotten" to send their documents over to the licensing people, among other completely ridiculous and preventable measures. I'm not sure about you, but this is completely unacceptable for any business, organization or government entity to do. I had foolishly expected better out of the great state of Texas, but I guess I was wrong.

I'm not quite sure this will help us at all, but I figured that it was worth a shot, and heck, I'm American so I'm going to use the rights that my father and forefathers fought, sweated and bled for. So if you would, give my petition a signature and hopefully Mr. Abbott will continue to prove that he is, indeed, pro-gun rights.

https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-se ... n-licenses" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Please let me know if the link doesn't work, thanks again!

The law allows 60 days.......which turns out to be 8 weeks......not the 4-6 weeks you said. Welcome to the forum. I do NOT mean this comment to sound disrespectful, but you sound to me like you're angry out of proportion to the offense.....if there is an offense..... and I would suggest that you might want to calm down a bit before you start carrying. You have a right to carry, but with rights comes responsibilities, among which are a responsibility to stay calm and keep a sense of perspective if you're going to go about strapped.

I don't take any offense to your comment. :) I guess I should have used frustrated rather than angry, but I still feel that it could do with a bit of reform. There are several people out there that are still going over the sixty day/ eight weeks limit, and I don't know everyone's situation, but it seems to me that it is quite ridiculous that people have to continually call the DPS for confirmation if they received their documents, and so on and so forth. There's also the thing that they allow you to upload your documents online and even send you a confirmation email that they've received them, but yet they still use mail to alert you that there's something wrong. I'm not sure about you, but that doesn't make sense to me. I understand that they have probably hundreds of thousands of people applying for these permits, and I don't live in Austin or work for the Texas DPS, but why haven't they tried to adapt? If they're getting overloaded by applications, the only reasonable solution, at least to my young and naive mind, is to hire more people or shove most of the grunt work off to the regional offices and leave the final say so and licensing printing to the main office in Austin. I also agree with you wholeheartedly that practicing your rights comes with responsibilities, but this was mainly to help people out and to streamline the process. I'm sorry if it came off as angry, disrespectful or belligerent because that wasn't my intention. Also, I didn't really do the math for the sixty days equaling out to eight weeks, so forgive me for that. Like I said before, my idea was to help my fellow citizens out.

Also, I went back and reread my post and it does carry a bit of an angry vibe, but like I said before, it wasn't my intention.

[The Annoyed Man]

No problem. My application, back in late 2007, took about 75 days to complete. I had to send them additional documentation to prove my citizenship (I'm an American, born overseas), and I didn't even get the notice for that until after 40-some days had passed. I find that as I get older, I get a little more philosophical about the passage of time.

Perhaps there has been an uptick in CHL applications, but the thing is, the numbers will come down again. What will they do with those state employees they hired to meet a temporary demand.... let them all go? By the way, if you think that getting a CHL takes too long, try jumping through the hoops to register a suppressor with BATFE and get the tax stamp...... 4-6 months to process because BATFE only has about 20 examiners to process the many tens of thousands of Form 4 filings they get every year, and there is a MASSIVE backlog.

Government is what it is, even in Texas.

[Prankster707]

No problem. My application, back in late 2007, took about 75 days to complete. I had to send them additional documentation to prove my citizenship (I'm an American, born overseas), and I didn't even get the notice for that until after 40-some days had passed. I find that as I get older, I get a little more philosophical about the passage of time.

Perhaps there has been an uptick in CHL applications, but the thing is, the numbers will come down again. What will they do with those state employees they hired to meet a temporary demand.... let them all go? By the way, if you think that getting a CHL takes too long, try jumping through the hoops to register a suppressor with BATFE and get the tax stamp...... 4-6 months to process because BATFE only has about 20 examiners to process the many tens of thousands of Form 4 filings they get every year, and there is a MASSIVE backlog.

Government is what it is, even in Texas.

That's probably what it is, lol, since I'm younger, I'm always on the move and doing stuff. So actually having to wait for something is a bit hard. But as for the temporary demand, it seems, at least to my knowledge and research that this has been going on for quite some time. I've seen posts dating back to 2010 and such about the sudden in flux of applications and so on, and I assume it has to do with Obama and the all the gun control things that are going on. That sounds like it totally sucks, man. Sounds like they need some help too, lol.

[Jumping Frog]

Government is what it is, even in Texas.

Well, let's not find ourselves accepting poor performance just because that it what we are "used to".

I am aware of multiple states (and counties) that also perform FBI criminal background checks where it takes them between 10 minutes to 24 hours to issue a license. If a sheriff pulls an FBI report on the computer and it comes back clean, that takes all of about 60 seconds. I have personal friends who pull such reports and that is their experience.

[SewTexas]

good grief, complaining about it taking a few weeks? when I got mine, in 2009 when we moved back from CO it took 3-4 months! I understand you're young and impatient, but you need to learn a bit of patience.

What are you kids going to do when y'all figure out it still takes 9 months to bake a baby?

[jmorris]

good grief, complaining about it taking a few weeks? when I got mine, in 2009 when we moved back from CO it took 3-4 months! I understand you're young and impatient, but you need to learn a bit of patience.

What are you kids going to do when y'all figure out it still takes 9 months to bake a baby?

2008, during the great rush, took 163 days. One minor problem, no online document submittal.

The biggest problem is, I belive, funding.

Next is that, even if the federal came back in a day there's other checks going on. IIRC, local background checks take the longest, especially if the local department has no desire to hurry a CHL application along.

[chasfm11]

Government is what it is, even in Texas.

Well, let's not find ourselves accepting poor performance just because that it what we are "used to".

I am aware of multiple states (and counties) that also perform FBI criminal background checks where it takes them between 10 minutes to 24 hours to issue a license. If a sheriff pulls an FBI report on the computer and it comes back clean, that takes all of about 60 seconds. I have personal friends who pull such reports and that is their experience.

I applied for a PA non-resident in October, 2014. You must do that in person at a sheriff's office and I picked Lancaster County, in the middle of the city of Lancaster. I was 8th in line at about 10am if I remember correctly. They used my Texas CHL as the basis but still did a background check and made a photo ID for me. I was done in less than 1 hour. I was trying to watch and time each of the steps in the process. My guess is that the background check step was about 10 minutes. By far the longest wait was for my turn to have the picture taken.

[RoyGBiv]

My wife got her first ever chl earlier this year.
DPS took 20 days including delivery time to get it to her, measuring from the date all paperwork and fingerprints were complete.

I've not yet read or heard about any reason to complain about the work DPS is doing processing chl applications. In fact, quite the opposite.

Relax. Be a bit patient.

Welcome to the forum.

[OldGrumpy]

We also have to remember that every agency in the state works under tight budgets these days. You can go to just about any agency and find where service has slipped in one area or another. The question is are we willing to pay more taxes to get better service? What Is acceptable? I applied for my CHL at the time when applications peaked because of Obama's gun grab. Still got mine in 6 weeks. You will always find exceptions due to fault of the person processing the application or fault of the applicant not providing enough info. Personally, I do not want to pay more taxes to try to perfect a system which works pretty efficiently now.

[Charles L. Cotton]

The DPS is doing a great job and it is rare to see someone have to wait over the statutory limit of 60 days to get a new license. My students routinely report that they receive theirs in 30 days or less, with some receiving a license in as little as two weeks. DPS is understaffed for the volume of applications they handle. There staff was budgeted (by the legislature) to handle around 3,000 to 5,000 applications a month, but my latest information indicates they are running 18,000 to 22,000 monthly. Look at the increase in the number of CHLs since 2008. This isn't a momentary blip on the radar, this represents hundreds of thousands of people who will be in the DPS system for many years. We currently have over 850,000 CHLs and if we divide that number over 60 months, DPS will be handling over 14,000 renewal applications alone every month, plus new applications. In spite of this, they issue the vast majority of licenses in far less time than is allowed by statute.

The CHL division was totally revamped about 4 or 5 years ago and it made a world of difference. Waiting times of 6 months or more disappeared within weeks of implementing the changes and it was improved again with the introduction on online applications and document submission. We are blessed with a very dedicated group at DPS who want to make this program work as efficiently as possible. There will be exceptional cases that create a processing problem, primarily when something forces it out of what I call the "purely online processing procedure." As already noted, these are rare but I realize that isn't much comfort for those who do have to wait longer to get their CHL.

As you noted, you joined the Forum just a few days ago, so you probably are not aware that I was very critical of the DPS prior to the revamping of the CHL program, including changing personnel at all levels. I was in the process of preparing multiple-plaintiff lawsuits against DPS based upon grossly exceeding the 60 day limit for new licenses and 45 day limit for renewals. It was so bad that it was virtually impossible to prevent your CHL from expiring. We couldn't start the renewal process until six monthly before expiration and it was taking longer than six months to get your renewal CHL. So I'm not jumping to the defense of "friends" with my comments; I'm giving credit where it is due and DPS deserves a great deal of credit for the job it is doing with an excessive workload. As a trial lawyer and activist of many years, I know what it is like to work under stress but mine lasts for weeks or a few months at a time. DPS labors under an excessive workload every single day with no relief in sight. I know it's frustrating if your application happens to fall outside the norm in terms of processing times, but please take a step back and take an objective look at the entire system.

The link to your petition was deleted because the Forum isn't going to be used to promote outside efforts that the Moderators do not evaluate and approve in advance. We have no control over other websites and that is a major issue for Moderators.

Chas.

[Skiprr]

I got my license 10 years ago and, in my opinion, DPS has steadily and continuously made operational improvements and increased efficiency. You need a basis for comparison. In 2005, nobody really expected the 60 days stated in the law to be met. My background is squeaky clean, and mine took 89 days. I think 70 to 80 days was common. CHL class that was twice as long; manual, inked fingerprint cards that, not atypically, were rejected for a redo because the prints weren't legible enough; no online document submission; CHL class required for every renewal; your driver's license photo could not be used on your CHL, and you had to submit standard, passport photographs...among other changes.

As to the background checks, keep in mind that DPS--as the law stipulates--does not rely solely on FBI results. Local jurisdictions have to be consulted to turn up some arrest records, including misdemeanor charges that were dismissed. If I had to guess, it's that local jurisdiction's response that is greatest bottleneck in the process, and neither the Governor nor DPS has any control whatsoever over that. There's no penalty in the law to the local jurisdiction for taking longer than stipulated to return information. Now visualize maybe two clerical employees in Bell County getting a handful of CHL applications from DPS at the same time. Their boss still wants all their regular work done, so guess what...CHL background research gets pushed back on the priority list.

And, yes, overall demand has increased greatly during that decade:



Despite that rapid increase in demand, DPS has improved its efficiency in licensing. It's much better, not worse.

The result is that many, like the OP, have come to fully expect, even demand, results faster than allowed by law. Inadvertent slip or not, the OP said he was frustrated he wasn't receiving his license in four to six weeks...which would be 25% to 50% faster than the law states.

So, no, I won't be signing the petition and, if Change.org permits it, I'd go so far as to recommend you delete it. There are far more pressing matters on the plate of Governor Abbott and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Just my humble opinion.

[Skiprr]

Cross-post. Sorry, Charles. I like my graph, though, so I think I'll leave it.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Cross-post. Sorry, Charles. I like my graph, though, so I think I'll leave it.

I like it too!

Chas.