May issue

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In the United States of America, for a may-issue gun law, authorities (usually the local police) have broad discretion as whether to issue a concealed carry permit to a given individual. Some may-issue states are, for all practical purposes, no-issue. Other may-issue states have policies that vary radically from one political subdivision to another.

States such as California and New York give wide latitude to the county authorities in issuing permits.

In New York City, a concealed weapons permit is theoretically possible to get but in reality it takes a large degree of money, political influence, and/or celebrity to get one. Examples of current and past New York City permit holders would be Howard Stern, Ronald Lauder, Edgar Bronfman Sr., Donald Trump, William F. Buckley Jr., Joan Rivers, and Arthur Sulzberger.

This category may also be interpreted to include states where authorities have very limited discretion in permit issuance, such as Connecticut.

Alabama by law is a may-issue state, but as of 2006 all Alabama county sheriffs issue permits to almost all qualified applicants, making it shall-issue in practice.[1]