How long have you had your CCW

[O2HeN2]

1995 (before "shall issue"), issued by John Wesley Anderson, then recently elected Sheriff of El Paso County.

A bit of history for the young-uns...

Anderson is the ONLY reason we have "shall issue" CHPs in this state, IMHO.

We tried for a decade to get shall issue here in Colorado. Every year legislation was introduced to make Colorado a "shall issue" state. Firearm owners from all over the state would journey to the capitol to testify in favor of it.

I remember testifying in front of bored Democrats and Republicans pretending that they were interested and then it would die in committee every time (if memory serves) after a couple of metropolitan Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police would tell stories about how blood would run in the streets if it was passed.

Then Anderson ran for Sheriff and one of his planks was "I'll issue permits". And he made good on the promise as quickly as he could after being elected.

I've got a ton of stories* about being one of Anderson's "Guinea pigs" for the process (he selected about 20 people to go through the process first to debug it) during which it was a great to meet and get to know him.

Long story short he expected maybe a few dozen applications. He got thousands.

This made the legislature finally sit up and notice that this was something they should respect and recognize.

Noooooo, just kidding, the legislature went "wait, we're missing out on a moneymaking opportunity!" and they got to work and finally passed "shall issue" at the state level.

O2

* A minor aftermath story is that I was walking to lunch with a friend in Downtown Colorado Springs one day and Anderson was walking the other way in dress uniform with a couple deputies. He stopped and and said hi, we shook hands, exchanged pleasantries and went on our way. At which point my friend looked at me and asked "Do I want to know why the Sheriff knows you?"