Wear and Carry- NOT

PJDiesel · Oct 3, 2019

cowboy321 said:
I recently threw away the MD application to buy a new hand gun. Wasted $50 getting finger printed. The form was too much of a hassle. So, I tossed it in the trash can after 1/2 an hour. What do people without Computers do?

Someone here could have helped.....

Kharn · Oct 3, 2019

antco said:
I understand the frustration, but .v1 - .v50 of most websites/apps/portals are complete garbage as the development continues based on user feedback. I use websites and portals for work that after three years of operation, are finally almost to the point of hitting the intended features and functionality. I won't go into specific examples of what I've encountered at my employer (in the business to provide a product and take your money), but I'll summarize my vague message with this pointed example: HSBC, the large credit card company, in Q4 2020, STILL does not provide the ability to make a credit card payment through their app. Go figure that one out.

Do I believe MSP's website woes are malicious? No, I do not.
Do I believe MSP has the motivation to improve the user experience? Likely not until some political pressure comes. Write letters with examples to your ~~appointed dictators~~ elected political leadership.

It's the same portal as the HQLs, they've had forever to test and fix it.

Doctor_M · Oct 3, 2019

Just wondering what recourse anyone would have if the electronic system wend down for two or three days? two or three months? two or three years?

Remember how they messed up the health care portal? I'm sure they could engineer a technical issue that would keep applications grounded for a year or more.

PJDiesel · Oct 3, 2019

Doctor_M said:
Just wondering what recourse anyone would have if the electronic system wend down for two or three days? two or three months? two or three years?

Same recourse we had during the "7 Day" (4 month) waiting period (nothing)

I that case it took local shop owners with some balls to step up and do what is right and allowable within the law. In this case,... they're probably no actual recourse.

BeoBill · Oct 3, 2019

motorcoachdoug said:
hmm i smell a discrimination law suite here since it appears that the poor can not apply for a ccw and or it will not take the usual software items that are in use for the us gov and people who use computers every day ! They are trying to limit your G&S and no where in COMAR does it give permission to limit how you can present G&S to MSP..

Question: How many "poor" people have passports?

Woody · Oct 3, 2019

PJDiesel said:
Are you suggesting one needs to have "customers" in order to be in a legitimate business? What about an NPO that collects donations or goods or money?

How about a company who doesn't make withdraws or deposits at a bank?

This is an example of we (gun owners in MD) have helped to make our bed. People seemed to think the correct way of applying included flooding them with useless paperwork, tax returns, receipts, notes, letters of recommendation, etc., etc.

My thought process was to supply them with AS LITTLE as humanely possible. They are supposed Maryland's Finest, let them do the police work to find out if you're legit or not. Supplying them with everything but the kitchen sink is part of the way we've gotten to where we are now.

I'm absolutely not suggesting any of that. I'm on your side. In an ideal world the whole separate permit thing wouldn't exist, a high percentage of us good guys would carry, and society would be much more polite.

I'm suggesting that there are a lot of people running perfectly legitimate businesses that would take a lot more than 3 minutes on Google to track down, if it would be possible at all in many cases. The way it is, it allows the applicant to decide what they believe clearly demonstrates they have a legitimate business and send it along. I sent what they asked for. Didn't send extra for good measure.

I believe they are trying to prevent people who don't qualify for the permit under the business owner category from gaming it. That doesn't mean any of these categories, or 'may issue' in the first place is how I believe it should be, but asking them to verify everyone's application under the regulations as they exist without documentation may not be how it should be either.

PJDiesel · Oct 3, 2019

Noted.

I'm just easily annoyed that a police agency seems to always need their hand held (or) appears as if they are incapable/unwilling to take the time to verify someone's assertion that they are in fact in business.

Woody · Oct 3, 2019

PJDiesel said:
Noted.

I'm just easily annoyed that a police agency seems to always need their hand held (or) appears as if they are incapable/unwilling to take the time to verify someone's assertion that they are in fact in business.

I hear you... Ridiculous any of these extra hoops exist to begin with.
FWIW... The interactions I had with the MDSP were with very professional people, none of whom seemed to be doing anything other than help the process along...nobody questioned anything or cross examined me. I'm sure that's not everyone's experience.

Now DC on the other hand...

Biggfoot44 · Oct 3, 2019

From observations of HPRB , the " minimum documents possible " potentially has pitfalls , and is subjective upon the individual Trooper/ Contract Investigator initially handling it .

When Applicant pushes back with " what I've already given is enough " , but Investagator still directly asks for additional XYZ , the Applicant is then subject to being deemed " uncooperative" , and denied .

PJDiesel · Oct 3, 2019

Biggfoot44 said:
From observations of HPRB , the " minimum documents possible " potentially has pitfalls , and is subjective upon the individual Trooper/ Contract Investigator initially handling it .

Only due to laziness/inept police work by the LD.

But, I hear ya. I'm pretty seasoned at it being that I'm on my third renewal. I sent in exactly zero extra pages beyond the app itself.

Biggfoot44 · Oct 3, 2019

Lazy OR overzealous .

CrueChief · Oct 3, 2019

So I have a question then. I had always thought that with all the technology we have now that it wouldn't take a competent coder very long build said site/portal. Having now read that it would be completely normal for these things to have growing pains even in this day and age is some what surprising. Its not like this is a new thing, I would have thought that there are coders out there who would specialize in this sort of thing, but then again I have no idea what it takes to build one so there is that.

GrimReaper · Oct 3, 2019

CrueChief said:
So I have a question then. I had always thought that with all the technology we have now that it wouldn't take a competent coder very long build said site/portal. Having now read that it would be completely normal for these things to have growing pains even in this day and age is some what surprising. Its not like this is a new thing, I would have thought that there are coders out there who would specialize in this sort of thing, but then again I have no idea what it takes to build one so there is that.

The state does not pay its programmers very well and cannnot get people that really know what they're doing.

If they contract it out it goes to the lowest bidder.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

RuralRifleGuy · Oct 3, 2019

CrueChief said:
So I have a question then. I had always thought that with all the technology we have now that it wouldn't take a competent coder very long build said site/portal. Having now read that it would be completely normal for these things to have growing pains even in this day and age is some what surprising. Its not like this is a new thing, I would have thought that there are coders out there who would specialize in this sort of thing, but then again I have no idea what it takes to build one so there is that.

There are people and companies that specialize in user experience design that spend months researching how to make the users experience as painless as possible. Those companies cost money that the state won’t spend because the state wants quick and cheap over good.

GrimReaper said:
The state does not pay its programmers very well and cannnot get people that really know what they're doing.

If they contract it out it goes to the lowest bidder.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

This is the exact reason for this, the state is cheap and I’d bet they don’t even provide a competent contact person for the project that can articulate what needs to be accomplished by the developers. Government projects rarely go with the best solution. Some federal programs have great websites because they have dedicated internal teams that hire smart people.

CrueChief · Oct 3, 2019

antco said:
I understand the frustration, but .v1 - .v50 of most websites/apps/portals are complete garbage as the development continues based on user feedback. I use websites and portals for work that after three years of operation, are finally almost to the point of hitting the intended features and functionality. I won't go into specific examples of what I've encountered at my employer (in the business to provide a product and take your money), but I'll summarize my vague message with this pointed example: HSBC, the large credit card company, in Q4 2020, STILL does not provide the ability to make a credit card payment through their app. Go figure that one out.

Do I believe MSP's website woes are malicious? No, I do not.
Do I believe MSP has the motivation to improve the user experience? Likely not until some political pressure comes. Write letters with examples to your ~~appointed dictators~~ elected political leadership.

Occam said:
There's pretty much zero chance that someone from the state procurement/contracting side of things sat down with the outside vendor(s) who work on this (and related) site features/apps and said to them: "Please make this hard to use so we can suppress gun ownership and carry permits." This smacks of the ALWAYS present underestimation of complexity, use cases, user variances around sophistication and platforms, and the utter lack of enough time and attention to do a decent QC job that turned into a workable punch list that the contractor still has budget/hours left to address. I have been working in this line of work for over 30 years. Do not assign to malice that which is explained by THE EXACT SAME POOR JUDGEMENT, LACK OF FORESIGHT, AND INABILITY TO ANTICIPATE HUMAN BEHAVIOR THAT MARKS EVERY SINGLE PROJECT LIKE THIS THAT'S EVER BEEN LAUNCHED, EVER.

They'll return to it with more time and money and keep chipping away at usability, just like every single thing like this, every time. If this had been perfect out of the gate, it would have cost ten times as much. Would that have been worth it? Separate discussion. Just mentioning that anyone who thinks this is peculiar to the MSP/LD or who's taking this personally hasn't been around the block in this arena. It's wildly more the rule than the exception, and it's far more about budget and available time than it is about giving a damn, let alone some sort of vindictive agenda.

RuralRifleGuy said:
There are people and companies that specialize in user experience design that spend months researching how to make the users experience as painless as possible. Those companies cost money that the state won’t spend because the state wants quick and cheap over good.

This is the exact reason for this, the state is cheap and I’d bet they don’t even provide a competent contact person for the project that can articulate what needs to be accomplished by the developers. Government projects rarely go with the best solution. Some federal programs have great websites because they have dedicated internal teams that hire smart people.

OK that's very discouraging, I was always taught anything worth doing is worth doing right, but then again I don't work in/for the Gov't.

onedash · Oct 4, 2019

I submitted my package today. $76 for livescan finger prints seems nuts, but they threw in 2 pics. I scanned and had to run through DOS website to get attached. The fingerprinting was on par with Jimmy Johns. Freaky fast!!! The only option to pay was to send a check. I called the handgun permit section and asked if online payment was supposed to be an option, they said they don't have that yet. So I paid $7.60 to send my check priority mail with tracking. Should be there tomorrow.

Nobody · Oct 4, 2019

clandestine said:
What is GSR?

Getting Screwed Royally

Nobody

jc1240 · Oct 4, 2019

onedash said:
I submitted my package today. $76 for livescan finger prints seems nuts, but they threw in 2 pics. I scanned and had to run through DOS website to get attached. The fingerprinting was on par with Jimmy Johns. Freaky fast!!! The only option to pay was to send a check. I called the handgun permit section and asked if online payment was supposed to be an option, they said they don't have that yet. So I paid $7.60 to send my check priority mail with tracking. Should be there tomorrow.

But there's no civil right infringement with all that. :mad54:

lazarus · Oct 5, 2019

CrueChief said:
So I have a question then. I had always thought that with all the technology we have now that it wouldn't take a competent coder very long build said site/portal. Having now read that it would be completely normal for these things to have growing pains even in this day and age is some what surprising. Its not like this is a new thing, I would have thought that there are coders out there who would specialize in this sort of thing, but then again I have no idea what it takes to build one so there is that.

Yes. But with automated testing, you get better things. But what you can automate and manually test doesn’t hold a candle to actual users. There you’ve got hundreds, thousands or millions of people using a system tested by maybe 1-50 people depending on application/site/budget.

I work in gov’t IT. The public (whether actual public, or just internal agency users) will find problems we couldn’t. Guaranteed.

lazarus · Oct 5, 2019

CrueChief said:
OK that's very discouraging, I was always taught anything worth doing is worth doing right, but then again I don't work in/for the Gov't.

It is, but GW pushed to contract out everything for government and that goes triple for IT. My agency does most stuff in house and hires a few contractors to supplement certain skills we have a hard time hiring.

Then there are most other federal agencies. Think of it like the DOD model for IT. DOD doesn’t build a tank, they get bids and Raytheon goes and builds a tank and there is a DOD project manager who nominally oversees things. Most other federal agencies have IT program managers who oversee contractors who are contracted to build the system. The later almost always costs more and frequently has more issues.

But, private sector doing the work (with public dollars).

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