Mecklenburg County Seeing An Unprecedented Surge In Number of People Applying For Gun Permits

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — An unprecedented surge. That’s how Mecklenburg County’s Sheriff describes the increase in the number of people buying guns.

Since June, the Sheriff’s Department has seen a 122 percent increase in the number of people applying for handgun permits. Prior to March 2020, gun permit applications averaged 1500 a month. Since then, that number has climbed to more than 4600.

Sheriff Garry McFadden believes fear is the main reason people are buying guns.  He says his employees are working overtime because of all the additional paperwork.

“We’ve never seen these numbers in any other time in history, so it’s something that’s truly overwhelming,” says McFadden.

The owners of Black Diamond Firearms and Training, located in Concord, agree. They’re also seeing an increase in people signing up to learn gun safety.

“There’s definitely an increase. We’ve made some adjustments on class sizes adding in more classes,” says Dreak Byrd, co-owner.

Byrd says they trained 40 people just Saturday.

McFadden says if this spike continues, he will request additional staff in this next budget.