High Demand for Tennessee’s New Online Concealed Carry Permit Option

[Charlie T Waite]

Demand is high for a new concealed-carry permit option in Tennessee that allows students to take the required training course entirely online.

According to one news report, at just eight days into the new year, 1200 people had applied for the new permit after completing an online course available from one of 14 state-approved vendors.

“We have done very well with it,” John McConnell, owner of a gun store in Clarksville, Tenn., and of CarryTN.com, one of the approved vendors, told America’s 1^st Freedom. “Our regular classes are full every week, but we can only put 26 people through that at a time. We're doing hundreds per day through the online course.”

The online course costs less—only $39 from the CarryTN site—than most in-person courses and allows people with time constraints to still obtain a concealed handgun carry permit, since they can take the course at their own pace.

The training course required for the new Concealed Handgun Carry Permit must offer a minimum of 90 minutes of instruction, covering current state laws along with safe handling procedures for firearms and ammunition. The permit’s application fee is $65, and it allows only for concealed carry, not open carry, and not on school or university properties.

The previous minimum-level, concealed-carry permit is being retained, but is now renamed the “Enhanced Handgun Carry permit.” It requires eight hours of in-person training and allows for open or concealed carry anywhere not otherwise prohibited.