Am I missing something from the "not disapproved" letter I just received?

I sold my first handgun to a private buyer through MSP last week. Everything went smoothly, we waited the required eight days and I transferred the handgun to the buyer on the eighth day.

Today, I received a letter from MSP, undated, addressed to "Regulated Firearm Transferor" with no mention of the actual handgun being transferred advising me that the application to purchase a regulated firearm was "not disapproved". It is signed by a sargent in the licensing division and at the bottom of the page it indicates there is an enclosure, but I only received the one piece of paper.

Is this the way MSP does this or did the sargent forget to include an enclosure? As it happens, I have a couple of handguns in the pipeline for sale. Given what I received, I could conceivably use this letter for any of the gun sales I've just transacted?

If this is the way MSP does it, it's just nuts.

I don't have a response to your specific question; but I do have a general comment about the MDSP Licensing Division that might help you:

Over my career I've worked with many, many law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies; to include county, city and state police departments. Just one example, while assigned to a unit in August, GA; I participated in numerous meetings with the South Carolina Law enforcement Division (SLED) and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI); these are the state equivalent of the FBI. I've worked with many FBI folks over may career and currently serve with one now. I point this out only to say, I know what I'm talking about when I have interacted with the MDSP and comment about them.

The MDSP are among the most professional police force I've worked with; like any other large organization, they have a lot of employees/officers with varying skills, personalities, knowledge and temperaments. I believe as an organization, because of the deliberate divisiveness and over politicalization of the 'gun issue'; most of their officers are reluctant to voice their own opinions and dare not go against 'the party line'. The MDSP Superintendent is appointed by the Governor; the top ranking officers naturally feel forced to be somewhat political. I've heard official MDSP testimony given during various gun-related hearings over the years, and feel the officers giving the testimony probably doesn't agree with everything they were dispatched to read. I've even heard on more than one occasion, the officer actually say the contrary to what they read during questioning. One such issue was 'straw-purchases'; it's not the big problem the anti-gun lobbyist would lead us to believe.

The Licensing Division is under staffed, and in an effort to service as many folks as possible, they do rely on forms and aren't always as responsive to phone calls as we might like. I don't think they would intentionally leave out a form, but I do believe they have in the past stalled for time, or taken action just to protect themselves and their agency from future litigation. Since they have now been sued, I guess some of that protectiveness was actually warranted; so I don't hold it against them.

This is why it is so important to vote for Larry Hogan as our next Governor; at least then we might have a shot at getting a superintendent that isn't simply following an agenda.

Larry Hogan is having a fund raiser with Tim Walters (running for Maryland Delegate); the fund raiser is Wednesday, 20 Aug; 6-10pm at 955 Generals Hwy, Crownsville, MD - just show up, make a small donation; make a big difference!

When you actually transferred the gun, did you have the purchaser sign the paperwork? You should now send that paperwork (appropriate copy) to the MDSP. The last transfer I did (7/13) and all others before that required this.

As a follow-on to Minuteman's comments...

I don't have his years of experience, but I do know the MSP are decent group of people.

- My interview for a carry permit in Rockville with Trooper Farfan was VERY professional.
- My Disapproval letter from the Licensing Division was resolved THE SAME DAY by Trooper Szymanski
- MY PIA requested was personally handled by another Trooper, who gave me his personal phone number, told me he was retiring, and to call him to get an "earful of what he couldn't say at that time."

That's not to say I haven't had issues... I did have to get a State Senator to write a letter forcing the Lic. Dev. to indicate that due to misinformation I was NEVER consider DISAPPROVED.

Even with the minor stuff (which was more major at the time...) I've not dealt with a Trooper that wasn't professional and a general credit to the service.

If you think something funcky is up... call em and sort it out.

jr88 said:

When you actually transferred the gun, did you have the purchaser sign the paperwork? You should now send that paperwork (appropriate copy) to the MDSP. The last transfer I did (7/13) and all others before that required this.

Click to expand...

All signed documents after physical gun transfer were hand-delivered to MSP barracks as required. I'm going to call Licensing tomorrow to see if they did omit an enclosure.

GBMaryland said:

As a follow-on to Minuteman's comments...

I don't have his years of experience, but I do know a decent group of people.

- My interview for a carry permit in Rockville with Trooper Farfan was VERY professional.
- My Disapproval letter from the Licensing Division was resolved THE SAME DAY by Trooper Szymanski
- MY PIA requested was personally handled by another Trooper, who gave me his personal phone number, told me he was retiring, and to call him to get an "earful of what he couldn't say at that time."

That's not to say I haven't had issues... I did have to get a State Senator to write a letter forcing the Lic. Dev. to indicate that due to misinformation I was NEVER consider DISAPPROVED.

Even with the minor stuff (which was more major at the time...) I've not dealt with a Trooper that wasn't professional and a general credit to the service.

If you think something funcky is up... call em and sort it out.

Click to expand...

I don't disagree with you or Minuteman. I too have found every interaction with MSP personnel to be courteous and professional. What I am speaking about, however, is a possibly flawed process, if in fact the correspondence I got today is all I was supposed to get. In any event, I will be calling Licensing tomorrow for a clarification.

Problems legal gun owners have with the MSP aren't with the the rank and file but with the political appointed MSP management.

Blacksmith101 said:

Problems legal gun owners have with the MSP aren't with the the rank and file but with the political appointed MSP management.

Click to expand...

I agree. I just got off the phone with MSP Licensing and was informed that the generic letter is all I will be getting. As I mentioned above, the generic letter does not reference whatsoever my name, the buyer's name, the date of the generic letter, the application number or the gun being transferred. Apparently if we are selling multiple guns we are just supposed to keep count of how many and make sure we get that many generic letters back in the mail.