Pa. expiration date for license to carry firearms extended again

Pennsylvania gun owners received another extension on license-to-carry permits, the sixth extension Gov. Tom Wolf has issued since the covid-19 pandemic began.

The previous extension, issued late last year, was set to expire at the end of the month.

Wolf has issued extensions every few months for a year now in an effort to keep crowds and lines from forming in offices of county sheriffs, some of which have closed in the ongoing pandemic.

For now, permits that expired on or after March 19, 2020, are valid through June 30.

Residents must be 21 to apply for a license carry a firearm, and a background check is performed for each application.

Licenses are valid for five years.

Gun and ammunition sales, as well as applications for firearms permits, have soared since the pandemic began, with Pennsylvania State Police setting and breaking background-check records last year. Officials said the fourth quarter of 2020 – Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 – was the busiest in the history of the Pennsylvania Instant Check System.

The system, known as PICS, is an instant background system used by firearms dealers and sheriffs to verify who can legally buy a firearm or obtain a permit.

During the last quarter of 2020, PICS processed 420,581 background checks – a records, state police officials said. In the same time span in 2019, PICS processed 272,901 checks.

Capt. Mark Shaver, assistant director of the state police Bureau of Records and Identification, said 2020 saw a 47% increase in PICS requests over 2019.

Just over 982,000 background checks were processed in 2019. Though a final 2020 report has not been released yet, quarterly reports indicated there were more than 1.4 million PICS checks last year.