Westchester Man Who Waited Nearly a Year for His Pistol Permit Starts Petition as County Hands New Applicants Appointment Dates in 2027

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

EASTCHESTER, NY — A Westchester County man who waited nearly a year to get his own pistol license has started a petition demanding the county fix a backlog he says now runs more than a year before a new applicant can even hand in the paperwork.

Nick Giordano, who owns a small design business in Eastchester, posted the petition on Change.org. It calls on the Firearms Policy Coalition, Gun Owners of America, and the Second Amendment Foundation to sue Westchester County over the delays, and it names the seven Westchester County Court judges who sign off on licenses as the decision makers. When he emailed me, it had 69 verified signatures after a week.

Giordano walked me through his own dates. He took his 18-hour course on October 17 and 18, 2023, and called the licensing division first thing the next morning. The appointment he was given was in early May 2024. That was seven months of waiting just to submit the application and get fingerprinted. His interview with the judge came on August 9, 2024. He was approved, and he picked up the license two to three weeks later. Roughly ten months, start to finish, with no explanation. He says he asked the receptionist why the first appointment was so far out and never got a real answer, and nothing about the delay ever came in writing.

In New York, that wait is not just a wait to carry. You need a license to possess a handgun at all, and the state issues only two kinds, full carry and premises. The full breakdown is in my guide to New York concealed carry laws and permits. Until that license is in hand, a Westchester resident who has already paid for and passed state-mandated training cannot legally own a pistol for his own home.

Then the wait got worse. Giordano told me his best friend took the course the last weekend in August and called the next morning, exactly as Giordano had coached him. The submission date the county gave him was August 10, 2027. Nearly a year to turn in a form. That number is what pushed Giordano to start the petition.

A family member’s timeline, which Giordano shared with me, shows the other side of the same problem. That applicant finished the class in early May 2025, called two days later, and was given an appointment of April 10, 2026. He then called the division at least three times a week, took a cancellation slot, and ended up submitting on August 12, interviewing with a judge on October 3, and picking up his license on October 10. Total: 162 days. His father took the same class, got the same original date, called every other week instead, and did not get his license until the following May. Same county, same paperwork, same qualifications. The only variable was how often each man pestered the office for a cancellation.

Getting the license is not the last line either. Giordano says adding a handgun to it, an amendment the county has to approve, takes another two to three months. His current dealer, Ulster Firearms, allocates the gun in his name and does not ask for payment until the amendment clears. He says most shops do not work that way, and when he bought his first Glock 19, before he found that dealer, he paid roughly $500 to $600 up front for a pistol that then sat at the store.

The cost to get this far, by his accounting: $650 for the 18-hour course at Gold Shield Training, an application fee of about $125, and a few hours off work spread across submission, fingerprints, the court interview, and pickup. The county collects that application money at the front of a line it then takes a year to move.

He did not come to this because of a single scare. He told me he runs late nights at his shop, the neighborhood can get sketchy, and he wanted to know he could protect himself if a situation ever came to that. He put in 18 hours of training before he ever dialed the number. That is the mindset the licensing system claims to want, and it is the applicant the system makes wait longest.

More from USA Carry:

• Delaware Concealed Carry Permit Information
• FPC Just Asked the Supreme Court to End Maryland’s Carry Bans, and the List of Banned Places Is Staggering
• FPC and SAF Ask Supreme Court to Strike Down New York City’s Stun Gun Ban, Call Second Circuit Ruling “Caetano 2.0”
• One Permit or Fifty? Minnesota Gun Owner Asks Supreme Court Whether Americans Need a License From Every State to Carry
• A Stalking Victim Passed Her Background Check, Paid for the Gun, and Went Home Unarmed. Maine’s 72-Hour Wait Is Now at the Supreme Court.

Giordano says he sent the petition to FPC, GOA, and SAF after launching it. He has heard back from a contact at FPC, SAF replied that it would pass the petition to its legal team, and GOA has not responded. What he wants, in his words: more staff, online scheduling, a defined wait time, any of it. “A year to just turn in your application is insanity,” he told me. “If they don’t have enough people running the division then they need to hire more.”

The petition is open to anyone, not just Westchester residents, and Giordano is also collecting permit timelines from other New York counties in a thread on r/NYguns. If your county’s process looks like this one, he wants the dates.

Read the original story: Westchester Man Who Waited Nearly a Year for His Pistol Permit Starts Petition as County Hands New Applicants Appointment Dates in 2027