You pretty much said it all there, as I’m in exactly the same boat as you. I applied for my licence and PTA in mid december 09 and I’ve only just finished the whole process and am now in a position to actually by a rifle (though I now only have 2 weeks left before the PTA expires even though it only turned up a week ago).

Its frustrating and unneccessary.

Cheers Mate.

I wasted police time as they had to generate it, I had to then go and send it off to Weapons Licensing, LGS has my rifles sitting in their safe.

I have just waited 10 weeks for my licence (meant to take 28 days) and despite that long delay I still have to wait an additional 28 days ….. plus whatever delay there is on that.

Having just been approved for the licence there is obviously no way I will now be declined for the PTA’s as everything I am doing is standard.

I think you are right ….. the PTA should be handled by the gun shop and should be automatically granted unless something gets flagged. That flag might be, say, something over a certain caliber, or if you have over a certain amount of guns etc. If there’s a flag then it needs to be looked at manually, which might mean a delay, but the vast majority would go through smoothly and not waste so many people’s time.

I assume the 28 days wait is so you can’t go and buy a weapon when having a bad day and go do some damage …. but having waited 10 weeks already, or even just 28 days, why delay the process yet further?

I am all for police checks etc …. but this is just a time waster.