Gun Permits Surge In The St Cloud Area

Leaning a bit toward the liberal side of things, a lot of people would peg me as "anti gun".  Not so, I spent several years living in Texas and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say EVERYONE had a gun.  That is everyone except me.

You see, I strongly suspected my wife at the time may have had homicidal tendencies (toward me) and, for my own safety, I figured I'd take my chances with the outside world and not have a gun in the house.

With all the chaos the last 4 or 5 years, it's no wonder applications for gun permits have gone way up in St Cloud and the entire state of Minnesota. The pandemic, economic slowdown, the killing of George Floyd resulting in riots in the Twin Cities are all factors in the rise of applications for gun permits.

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Stearns County alone had more than 2,560 and that's up about 40% from the previous year of 2019.  According to Dan Miller, Chief Deputy "The last half of the year we were on pace for 3400 gun permits. We did about 1700 in six months-  that was more that we did in all of 2019"

Despite the increase in gun permits, many people are not actually buying guns. Many are just taking the gun classes and will maybe eventually purchase a gun.

Minnesota, as a whole, issued 96,554 gun permits in 2020, up from 51,404 the year before.  The FBI conducted a record 39 million background checks nationally in 2020.

Do you feel a need for a gun more than ever before?