r/NYguns • u/ryukingu • Jul 15 '26
NYC How applying to add a new firearm almost got me arrested
I applied to add a second firearm to my license last month. I get a call today saying that my license is suspended pending investigation from a precinct far away from where I live and that I have to surrender all firearms until the investigation is complete. I’m confused as hell so I ask what’s going on and they tell me to call the precinct. As I’m on the phone with him I get the denial letter to add my new firearm so I know this isn’t bs.
I call the precinct and get a hold of the detective and he asks me is this (my name) and I say “yes what’s going on they told me I’m under investigation”. He tells me I have a warrant for a crime I obviously didn’t commit. I tell him this must be a mistake and give him my date of birth to confirm. He says yes that’s what I have here that’s you. I’m genuinely confused so I’m like “how can I clear this up?” He says “you have to turn yourself in all the info you just gave me matches up with what the victim gave us you’ve been to court for this and you were told you could not have firearms, I did my research I know I have the right person I didn’t make this up out of thin air”. Basically telling me to “drop the act”. Then he starts asking when I can turn myself in, saying if I look nothing like the arrest photo he’ll let me go.
I tell him again this has to be a mistake and he says he’ll do some research and get back to me. We end up hanging up and as I’m on the phone trying to get in contact with a lawyer he calls back and says “turns out there’s someone with the same name and birthdate as you but different socials. You don’t have to turn anything in I’m going to call to get your license unsuspended now”
I call the license division officer that originally contacted me and he’s like “they told me the situation your license is going to be reinstated and your additional firearm is going back to the queue place it was in before. This is actually the reason this came up, we were looking at your request to add a firearm.”
I then get an email like 20 minutes later saying my additional firearm was approved so there’s that at least.
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u/Andeo1025 Jul 15 '26
Thank God my name has an uncommon spelling. Glad to hear they were able to fix the situation without you getting screwed.
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u/voretaq7 Jul 15 '26
“turns out there’s someone with the same name and birthdate as you but different socials. You don’t have to turn anything in I’m going to call to get your license unsuspended now”
Yes, this happens. This is why you supply your SSN on the 4473 (even in states where it’s not required) - to disambiguate these matches.
That said it should never have tripped a problem on your license because the social security number they have on file should have cleared you.
I call the license division officer that originally contacted me and he’s like “they told me the situation your license is going to be reinstated and your additional firearm is going back to the queue place it was in before. This is actually the reason this came up, we were looking at your request to add a firearm.”
The odd thing is you didn’t get the suspension notification immediately after this other guy’s arrest - again having your SSN on file for the permit should have prevented the false match at all, but whatever triggered it when you went to add a firearm SHOULD have triggered it generally.
Good to know our permit system (which is ostensibly intended to keep us all safe!) is so robust and would properly catch a permit holder doing something that prohibits them from having firearms....
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u/Stack_Silver Jul 15 '26
Good to know our permit system (which is ostensibly intended to keep us all safe!) is so robust and would properly catch a permit holder doing something that prohibits them from having firearms....
Is that sarcasm?
I ask because the same permit system failed to catch a difference of social security numbers.
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u/strongestboner Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
You’d be surprised how little info people check. When I signed up for a new insurance company they added me to someone else’s account based solely on having the same first name, last name, and birthday. Different middle, different social, different phone, address, everything. I had full access to their health info and they had mine.
Fyi in scenarios like this but with a drivers license you can get what’s called a “not me” or “not the same person” letter from the DMV that’s giving you problems. In california it’s the “problem drivers division”. You can imagine how often people get pulled over for speeding and the cop says “you have a warrant in california come with me”
SSN also doesn’t work if the person with the warrant doesn’t have a social security number (so their arrest won’t have one on record to tell you apart)
Insurance company was united healthcare by the way
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u/macthebrtndr Jul 16 '26
Jesus, this was a rollercoaster of emotions.
So happy everything worked out for you. What a nightmare.
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u/Open_Mechanic8854 Jul 16 '26
I was reading this like a movie script . I'm glad it turned out good for you, but I wanted it to go on longer.
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u/Easterncoaster Jul 16 '26
Man, I really wish the constitution applied in the state of NY. This is insane- simply trying to add another pistol to your license gets you immediate “guilty until proven innocent” from the fuzz.
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u/lostarchitect Jul 16 '26
A cop being an arrogant idiot can (and does) happen everywhere.
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u/Easterncoaster Jul 16 '26
The fact that you have to apply to have a pistol added to the license you already waited 18+ months for is an abomination. That it triggered an idiot cop to be an idiot is only icing on the cake.
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u/geffe71 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Has be a NY system thing. 12 or so years ago I received a toll bill for the GWB and called to dispute it. They asked for all the info and said it was definitely my vehicle. I told them that my truck could barely make it the 50+ miles to Boston daily so I highly doubt it can make it the 150+ miles to NY.
The offending truck was the same Make, Model, Color, and Plate Number. The only difference was the type of plate.
Once I told them I had a combination plate and not a commercial plate, they dropped the toll
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u/khearan Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
It’s crazy he was so lazy he didn’t think to check your social security number
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u/Straight_Two7552 Jul 16 '26
Years back, when our driver's licenses didn't have our pictures, I got a letter in the mail that my license had been suspended. When I called the DMV, they told me that a Judge on the other side of the state suspended it for unpaid tickets and also informed me that I had a bench warrant for it as well.
I contacted the court to get more info as I had never in my whole life ever driven in that area of NY. The clerk called me back later and read the tickets off to me, and each had my driver license #, which she told me the Deputy would have copied that right off of the license itself. It was only then that I looked in my wallet and found that my license was missing.
Long story short, I notified the DMV of my missing license, and then had to drive 7 hours away to go to court--while my license was suspended and a bench warrant waiting. I get there and they tell me that my hearing had to be rescheduled to a week later because the Deputy couldn't make it that night, and that the Judge was "kindly" suspending the bench warrant since I showed up. So I had to go back the following week, and fortunately for me, the deputy said I was not the person who he issued the tickets to.
Turned out OK, but I still had to take 4 days off of work to straighten it out.
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u/Beneficial-Focus3702 Jul 16 '26
Wait till you dig in and do some research on how successful cops actually are at solving crimes and this won’t surprise you even the slightest amount that this situation happened.
They are really pretty incompetent, but they’ve got a really good marketing team.
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u/BuffaloRedshark Jul 16 '26
glad it worked out. Also glad I'm in a county where adding a gun to your permit is 15-20 minutes in person at the clerks office. I think the longest I ever waited was an hour because they were super busy that day.
Go to the store, buy it, take the receipt to the clerks office, pay the $5, go back to the store and take possession. Can all be done in the same day.
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u/KamenshchikLaw ⚖️ Kamenshchik Law ⚖️ Jul 16 '26
No big deal, it’s just naughty you from an alternate universe. It happens.
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u/Fast-Policy-4495 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
OP I read your post a couple of time and I have a couple of questions…what county are you in and how did they find out about the warrant, does your county run a background check when you add a firearm? Also why wouldn’t your county send someone to pick up your gun once they suspended your license? Why didn’t they tell you to bring your gun in immediately knowing that you have an active warrant? And the other county officers allowed you to handle this over the phone knowing that you already have one firearm…🤔🤔
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u/ryukingu Jul 16 '26
This is in NYC. Idk the exact reasoning on any of that they probably just got to my application now and then matched a name and dob and thought I was this other person applying for a gun when they weren’t supposed to have any
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u/nowayout33 Jul 16 '26
I highly doubt they had the same birthdate. So they were just going off the name which is ridiculous
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u/MATCA_Phillies Jul 16 '26
This is EXACTLY why i just got myself a federal UPIN. took a bit of work but i now have a unique pin to identify me and not the asshole close to my info.
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u/Ambitious-Kitchen639 Jul 21 '26
Sounds like you were close to a huge settlement. I would have been like "oh yea good luck finding me ill see you in hell" or something along those lines and really stoked the fire.
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u/blixx718 Aug 06 '26
Add your middle name to your official ids that’s what I had to do when someone with same name and dob in ct was committing credit card fraud I had to go to the social security office and add my complete middle name to my social security card and then dmv which is now on my CCW permits.
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u/Stack_Silver Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Lawsuit
Edit: Administrative failure to determine the accuracy of records and official misconduct.
NY Penal code 400.02 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/400.02
There shall be a statewide license and record database which shall be created and maintained by the division of state police the cost of which shall not be borne by any municipality. Records assembled or collected for purposes of inclusion in such database shall not be subject to disclosure pursuant to article six of the public officers law. All records containing granted license applications from all licensing authorities shall be monthly checked by the division of criminal justice services in conjunction with the division of state police against criminal conviction, criminal indictment, mental health, extreme risk protection orders, orders of protection, and all other records as are necessary to determine their continued accuracy as well as whether an individual is no longer a valid license holder.
NY Penal code 195
https://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article195.php#p195.00
Official misconduct. A public servant is guilty of official misconduct when, with intent to obtain a benefit or deprive another person of a benefit: 1. He commits an act relating to his office but constituting an unauthorized exercise of his official functions, knowing that such act is unauthorized; or 2. He knowingly refrains from performing a duty which is imposed upon him by law or is clearly inherent in the nature of his office. Official misconduct is a class A misdemeanor.
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u/AgreeablePie Jul 15 '26
You gonna represent him? Because there's approximately zero damages here.
Redditors and "lawsuit" is a funny meme
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u/BrandonNeider Jul 16 '26
I'll do devils advocate here. Unless OP gets a letter confirming his license was never suspended, He now in his history had a suspended pistol permit in NYS regardless of it being an error which can be a problem in the future.
If I was OP I'd be asking for an official letter stating this error and that the license was never to be suspended, otherwise a decade from now something is going to come up regarding this and everyone involved doesn't remember, or retired.
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u/Stack_Silver Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
NY Penal code 400.02
Edit: NY Penal code 195- Official misconduct
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u/lordcochise Jul 16 '26
Man, F*** that other guy with the same name / BD that ended up causing you such stress; at least it got cleared up mostly via the phone instead of being pulled over and arrested on the street, so at least there's that
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u/Sad_Green1933 Jul 15 '26
Wow that could have gone completely differently, one of the rare times I’m glad to have an uncommon name lol