Marked Increase in Interest for Concealed Handgun Licenses, Sheriff's Office Says - The Source

The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office is seeing a marked increase in the number of people interested in getting a concealed handgun license, the office said Thursday. Since the Oct. 15 shootings at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, in which a father of two students entered the school and shot the assailant with a legally issued firearm, 204 people have begun the process of applying for CHL. That’s double the number of people who applied for a new CHL in Deschutes County for the entire quarter ending July 2026, according to DCSO’s quarterly activity report released in July.

“Over a 9-month period (Jan-Sep 2026) DCSO has issued 975 new CHLs. That’s an average of about 110 new CHLs per month (about 27 per week). The 204 over five days was a significant departure from the average,” wrote DCSO Public Information Officer Jason Carr in an email.

“Often after major incidents that impact our community, we see more interest in concealed handgun licenses,” Sheriff Ty Rupert stated in the release. “This trend is consistent with what we have observed historically, and we understand why many residents are thinking more about personal and family safety right now.”

As a result of the increased interest, DCSO scheduled an additional license training class for November 14 — though that class filled up within the first 20 minutes of news reports coming out about the increase in applications today, Carr said. DCSO is working to schedule yet another class.

In Oregon, CHLs are issued by the county of residence. To get one, people must be at least 21 years old, a U.S. citizen, must live in the county in which they are applying and meet other requirements around criminal history and mental health. People can get more information from DCSO’s website.

Over the past five years, DCSO has denied 100 applications and revoked another 230, “mostly due to drug and DIUU convictions and violations on a person’s record,” Carr told the Source. If a person is convicted of a misdemeanor, there’s a four-year waiting period for them to reapply for a CHL. People convicted of felonies are no longer eligible.

According to Oregon State Police data obtained by the Source, Deschutes County had a per-capita rate of 89.3 permit holders per 1,000 people as of 2025. The highest per-capita rate was Sherman County at a rate of 725.3 per 1,000 people; the lowest rate was in Benton County, with a rate of 42.8 permits per 1,000 people.

—This story was updated from its original version to reflect the status of the license training class and to add comments from Carr.