I’ll speak to the states I have experience with:
South Dakota:
At the time I lived there SD charged $5 for a permit. It did not require a fingerprint background check. It took less than a week to get the permit from the local sheriffs office.
Since then they have added the enhanced permit amd gold card permit options to the regular permit.
The enhanced permit requires:
- a finger print background check
- academic training including;
South Dakota law relating to firearms and the use of force;
The basic concepts of the safe and responsible use of handguns;
Self-defense principles; and
-live fire “training” with at least 98 rounds fired by the student.
The gold card permit is the same as the regular permit but with a finger print back ground check.
As of July 1 2022, they have waived all the permit fees, except for county level administration fees, like finger print fees.
Virginia:
At the time I was there (2007) they required a finger print background check and academic training but no live fire training.
The state law required the permit application be processed within 45 days. Since I lived in Arlington county which is pretty anti gun, after nearly six months of calling and asking about it, I went down and demanded it. They got it out of a file drawer in less than a minute, and I gathered they just elected to deny the permits were processed until people showed up or lawyered up.
North Carolina:
NC require 8 hours of academic training, 4 hours of which is Gun safety and 4 hours of which is in the laws pertaining to the use of lethal force in self defense. They also require a finger print background check, and a release to check the two state hospitals for mental health treatment records.
They also require live fire “qualification”. The courses are approved by the state and the standards for the live fire qualification are left to the discretion of the person seeking course approval, although it does need to be approved. Most seem to use one of the various law enforcement qualification courses with 40 or 50 pounds and require something on the order of 80% of the rounds to hit a B-27 target.
This was done with a Kimber Ultra Carry in .45 ACP. The nines we the result of pushing a little too much in some double taps and the 8 is just embarrassing. Most of the people qualifying however had rounds scattered all over the target. I don’t recall anyone not qualifying so it’s still a low bar.
Minnesota
MN also required a finger print background check, a one day academic course and live fire “qualification”.
The qualification was more of a pass/fail “can you shoot a gun safely and hit a B-27 sized target at 5 yards” exercise. The instructor worked with the students 1 on 1 and as watched him coach students until they could reliably hit the target.
When he got to me he noted I was shooting and K frame revolver and asked me to fire six rounds at the target. I had my 3” Model 66 with my .357 Mag self defense load and put all six shots in a 1.5” group in the x ring of a B-27 target at five yards rapid fire.
He said “I noticed you did that double action, that’s good”. He asked me if I was shooting .357 Mag and I replied I was. He said “of course” followed by “you passed” and moving on to the next student. So that was it - six rounds.