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Whatever it cost should be covered by the fee

I dont see what the problem is since Sheriffs have been processing background checks on initial purchases anyway(at a cost of about $5 - so much for this unfunded mandate). As I understand it many departments were anticipating as much as a 30 day period to process application/background checks($100 isnt cheap for a premit)....doesnt sound like they were working overtime or adding staff. In addition, the requirements for training by "certified" trainers was going to slow down the flow anyway (figure another $100 in training expense for the applicant). It's not like they were going to work overtime to punch all these applications through within a specific period of time. The idea that this "extra workload" is ADDING cost is ludicrous.

In Missouri, permits were already required for pistols and it is a misdemeanor to obtain such a concealable firearm without the permit. The $5 permit also requires the signature of the seller or the lender of weapon. --- The new law allows these concealable weapons to now be carried out of plain sight with the additional permit, but Scott County Sheriff Bill Ferrell doesn’t anticipate any significant increase in the number of permitted guns in the county.

Let there be NO doubt, this was NEVER about unfunded mandates, unless we want to accept the idea that deputies were maxed out on their current activities and couldnt possibly do more work....and if that was the case, it would only mean a shift in prioities of activities that were performed.

Whatever it cost should be covered by the fee..

I dont see what the problem is...

Obviously.

It's not a matter of how much it costs. It's not a matter of how hard the sheriff's department are working or of their priorities. Those arguments could be made for any new initiative. The problem is that the new law would require a task by the various sheriff's departments that they are not now performing, and further the law prohibits any of the fee from being used to pay for that task. Despite your claim, it is exactly about an unfunded mandate.

It so happens you'd put processing carry permits high enough in the priorities of the various sheriff's departments to make that cost fit within their current budgets, and let something else go undone instead. I may even agree with that prioritization. But that's an opinion on what the correct priorities are. Pick one you don't like - say, setting up roadblocks to enforce seat-belt laws or something - and every one of your arguments applies just as well, except that of course it's not where you personally would put their priorities. Then multiply that by a hundred initiatives that all add 'just a little' work, but provide no funding.

That sort of incremental tasking is not allowed in that system. The Hancock Amendment specifically forbids the legislature from forcing the various sheriff's departments to make that choice, by prohibiting any new tasking that doesn't come with funding. It doesn't matter if the deputies are or are not 'maxed out' at present, either. If they're not, then getting rid of the excess and reducing the taxpayer burden for their salaries is - at least in some people's opinion - just as viable an option as giving them more work to do. It certainly doesn't automatically justify adding more tasking just because in your judgment, or mine, they're not working hard enough now. It's not a solution to say that they can work it in their 'spare time', either, because that just changes from a 'shall-issue' rule to a 'sheriff's-discretion' rule, since an anti-gun sheriff would now have the discretion to delay applications indefinitely by claiming they didn't have the time to work on them.

Your comments on things like "$100 isn't cheap for a permit" are irrelevant because every nickle of that money is headed somewhere else - and that's the point. If they'd just change the silly law to allow that permit fee to be used to pay for the cost of processing the permit itself - which is the sensible, rational thing to do anyway - this wouldn't have been an issue.