This is no April Fools Day hoax.

In the latter part of 2007 this story began. I applied with the City of New York to own a shotgun. No small feat some of you may know. The process typical takes up to 4 months. Being my atypical self it took nearly 16 months. It was due to various holes in systems. Some dating back as far as 1994. In the end, January 2009, the city authorized me to own a shotgun.
Yesterday I had the money saved to finally purchase the shotgun. A Beretta Urika 2. Only to find those previously mentioned holes hadn’t been completely filled. As part of the purchasing process the verify you and your background with FBI and ATF.

This put me in the waiting game, again.

Because the amount of time it took before, I had visions of this really escalating. Including me visiting the state of New Hampshire to discuss expunging certain records. My friend commented how little enthusiam I expressed afte buying the shotgun. I told him it was because I still did have it “in my warm living hands.” Joking aside, it really was because I still had nothing to show for all this effort.

However, today it changed. The Beretta Gun Gallery called me and literally said, “The FBI loves you, you can come pick your gun whenever.”

After about 18 months, I am now a proud licensed owner of a shorting shotgun.