Concealed hand gun applications hit an all time high in Mesa County

Records are breaking at the Mesa County Sheriff's office where hundreds of concealed hand gun applications are piling up.

Demand has skyrocketed following a push by the administration for gun control measures.

Spokesperson for the Sheriff’s office, Heather Benjamin, says she's never seen so many people lining up for hand gun applications.

She says the sheriffs office is short staffed, making the process a long one.

The last time they saw a spike like this was in 2009, but back then the sheriff's department had more staff.

In 2010 budget cuts forced the department to let go of some employees.

Now you can only come in for concealed hand gun matters, Tuesday through Thursday from 9 AM to 4 PM

On top of that the Sheriff's office only has one person to process applications.

“What that does is allow her two uninterrupted days to solidly process these applications, so we do not have any misgivings that the number of applications we get is less, because we have less days to accept them," said Benjamin.  

In December the department received over 160 applications, this month they've received over two hundred.

Benjamin wants to remind everyone that if you need to renew your permit, to come into the sheriff’s office 120 days before it expires to save yourself some time.

The application process is currently taking about 90 days.

Officials from the Sheriffs Office say, they appreciates everyone's patience, and urge them to visit its website for additional hand-gun application information.

http://sheriff.mesacounty.us/