Editor’s Note: One day following the publication of this article, Iannuzzo was issued his permits.
Is Belleville, New Jersey Slow-Walking Firearm Related Permits?
New Jersey is a special place when it comes to the Second Amendment. For nearly a century, the rights enshrined in our Bill of Rights concerning weapons and arms have been under regulation. In the wake of NYSRPA v. Bruen, most of the permitting issues should have been resolved. In N.J., in particular, this should not be an issue. 100% of the application process is online and the New Jersey State Police handles the heavy lifting on the background checks. Recently there have been reports coming in that Belleville is allegedly slow-walking permits.
If we look at the New Jersey NICS Research Center’s data on Belleville concerning permit to carry issuance and delays, the department is actually not doing that bad. According to their data, Belleville has a 66 day average turnaround on the issuance of permits to carry, but in the first quarter of 2024, their average time is 24 days.
Considering the system is electronic and mostly handled by the State Police, there’s no reason the turnaround shouldn’t be as soon as all the references have checked back in and all payments made. NJNRC noted that 412 days is their longest permit to carry wait on record.
That’s for carry permits. But what about all the other paperwork that people are required to have in New Jersey to exercise a Constitutional right?
N.J. requires firearm identification cards for the purchase of, and the possession outside of exemption, of long guns. N.J. also requires pistol purchase permits for each and every handgun an individual wishes to acquire. The permits are good for 90 days with an option to renew for another 90 days at the issuing authority’s discretion.
Further, a person must be in possession of and show either a firearm identification card, pistol purchase permit, or permit to carry in order to purchase handgun ammunition in the Garden State.
Reports have been coming in that Belleville is taking an excessively long time to process peoples’ pistol purchase permits and firearm identification cards. This is even in the case of people who have already been through the New Jersey vetting system multiple times in their lifetimes.
According to one applicant, Belleville resident Daniel Iannuzzo, these issues have persisted for years. Reviewing the paperwork and documentation that Iannuzzo provided, we can see he applied for three permits to purchase pistols on November 13th, 2024.
New Jersey requires applicants – even repeat ones – to provide two character references in order to apply for permits. Iannuzzo’s references returned their character evaluations via the reporting system on November 13th and 14th respectively.
Iannuzzo also has a receipt dated November 14th, 2024 showing that he paid the required $75.00 fee to Belleville – in addition to the $21.00 background investigation fee to the State of New Jersey.
According to New Jersey law, an issuing authority has 30 days to issue permits to purchase or firearm identification cards to residents.
2C:58-3f states:
Granting of permit or identification card; fee; term; renewal; revocation. The application for the permit to purchase a handgun together with a fee of $25, or the application for the firearms purchaser identification card together with a fee of $50, shall be delivered or forwarded to the licensing authority who, upon determining that the application is complete, shall investigate the same and, provided the requirements of this section are met, shall grant the permit or the identification card, or both, if application has been made therefor, within 30 days from the date of receipt of the completed application for residents of this State and within 45 days for nonresident applicants.
When a licensing authority determines whether or not an application is complete is not defined in the statute. If the application was submitted via the N.J. portal, all references returned back their investigation reports, and all fees were paid, does that not make the application complete?
It’s now the end of December, about two weeks past the 30 days an issuing authority has to issue permits, and Iannuzzo has still not received his.
On December 20th, Iannuzzo reached out to the records department, querying them on if there was an update on his application. Later that day he got a response saying they had not reached his application yet, but to expect an email the first to second week of January.
Subsequent to hearing back from the records department, Iannuzzo reached out to Belleville Chief of Police Mark Minichini. Within about 20 minutes of Iannuzzo sending the message to Chief Minichini, the message was forwarded to Sergeant Barbara Bermudez, the permitting officer.
Bermudez replied to Iannuzzo. She said there’s been an increase in applications and therefore there is a longer wait list. It was further stated to Iannuzzo that applications are put in the queue in order based on when the Belleville Police Department is paid their permitting fees.
Iannuzzo said these problems with Belleville, New Jersey weren’t always occurring. He said under the old system, prior to the electronic filing, he would get permits back in one week, or “two tops.” He alleges that “now that we supposedly went to a ‘newer and easier’ system, the permitting delays got longer and longer. Every time you call the records department, the person who handles the permits is always on vacation.”
Iannuzzo recounted a situation from a couple of years ago, when he was waiting an excessive amount of time on permits to be issued. “I did in fact attend a town meeting to address my concerns about pistol purchase permit delays, and was told by the mayor, ‘I’m the mayor and even I’m waiting on permits.’ The only thing the chief had to say was, ‘Just make sure you’re paid.’ The following day I received a call from the sergeant stating, ‘I wish you did not go to the town meeting.’”
Iannuzzo also said that, “After unanswered emails and calls, if you do not CC the mayor or chief, you will not get a response from the records department.”
“In my opinion the permits are being slowed up on purpose and I can’t be the only one with these delays,” Iannuzzo said in a statement. “Everytime I hear ‘not completed’ on my purchase permits, I think of the Carol Bowne case.”
Former resident of Belleville Scott Wentworth discussed having similar issues in 2023. He noted that the permitting officer at the time was not Sergeant Barbara Bermudez. None-the-less, Wentworth said he waited 60 days for his pistol purchase permits.
The day Wentworth applied he said his references also filled out the online forms. After waiting almost two full months, he said, “I had to email for an update…[I] was told they were backed up. Five days later, I got the approval.”
We reached out to Belleville Mayor Michael Melham about the delays and he quickly responded. He said that he’d be checking in on the matter of delays in permit issuing “first thing tomorrow.”
Mayor Melham indicated that he’s been made aware of delays in the past via email. He said that after he inquired, the permitting delays “were quickly addressed.” As for why there were delays in the past, he noted that, “Reasons have ranged from the applicant not having complete paperwork, failure [to] pay a fee, or delays with background checks (which is not under our control).”
Chief of Police Mark Minichini was contacted with a request for comment. “I wasn’t aware of any delays other than some applicants failing to pay the $2 cash fee to the Police Records Department, which will delay the process,” Minichini said. “I will look into this further and get back to you.”
A note on the $2.00 fee Chief Minichini referenced. As expressed above, the fee is not $2.00 anymore, but $25.00 per permit.
Sergeant Barbara Bermudez failed to respond to our request for comment or explanation.
Why there are excessive holdups on permitting in Belleville, New Jersey, there seems to be no reasonable explanation. Regardless, by statute, the department has 30 days to issue the permit once the application is considered “complete” by the licensing authority – paid for and references returned should qualify that.
Police Chief Mark Minichini and permitting officer Sergeant Barbara Bermudez have plenty of explaining to do. While it’s appreciated that both Mayor Melham and Chief Minichini did say they’d be looking into the matters, they failed to follow up after two business days. This all begs the question, is Belleville purposefully slow-walking permits? Since the system is electronic, there really are no excuses.
