>Why give police the power to decide these permits?

So that they can make an end run around the 14th amendment, deny all the blacks, deny all the mexicans, deny all the chinese while the state looks the other way, or at least that's what the tacit understanding was ~70yr ago when people were voting for politicians who supported these policies.

Exactly—this is the same reason cops have discretion over who they fine for traffic violations vs. who they let off with a warning: so that the "right" people don't end up having to pay fines.

Having been recently subjected to an invalid traffic violation, it seems discretion means they go after the easy target that will most likely pay (someone caught dead to rights, or looks like they don’t have time or money to fight the case). I watched who the cop pulled over after me and every person was someone who had the means and likelihood to pay the fine rather than fight what was a bogus trap (based on the perceived value of their cars; recent model year, none less than 40k)

I simply went to court and the officer never showed up, but I didn’t see any of the other people pulled over that day in court either (while reasons could explain this away I find it hard to believe of the 7 people I observed none of them paid the fine or took a driving course from the comfort of their own home to be done with it)

Usual think of the children stuff. Basically, someone who shouldn't have a permit could hypothetically get one and then go on a killing spree, so we need to give police and sheriffs full powers to deny them. If I remember rightly, one of the main things the American gun control movement has been campaigning for is the removal of shall-issue policies which require police and sheriffs to issue permits like these unless they have a specific legally-defined reason not to, and replacing them with the kind of may-issue policies that allow arbitrary denials and this sort of corruption - and they're quite happy to point at dead kids and accuse anyone who gets in their way of supporting child murder to achieve this.

Contrary to the wishes of gun control organizations, the resulting trend has actually been towards shall-issue and constitutional carry over the past few decades.

Ironically anyone intent on committing murder get to conceal carry at will.

Agreed, this makes 0 sense to me. There should be an explicit list of reasons for which police should be able to deny these permits, and the police should have to show their evidence as to why they believe one of these reasons apply.

The problem with this is pretty obvious. When some scumbag like a pimp or similar without a conviction goes for a permit, you end up in a situation where the police are enabling certain types of undesirable behavior.

IMO, discretion for this sort of thing should be with a judge, not a cop.

How are they enabling undesirable behavior? Wouldn't the behavior occur anyways? Most people would be stupid to create a paper trail for themselves if they plan to use a weapon in a crime. Hence the reason close to 50% of guns recovered from a crime were stolen.

How would a judge or a cop have any impact on a situation without a conviction? They wouldn't know any better without additional data.

Denying permits may not be as effective at thwarting career criminals as you may think.

Perhaps, but providing them with CCWs will be effective at thwarting career police chiefs.

How so?

Think about the NY Post headline for any action like this.

“Guns for Thugs - Sheriff Arms Pimp”

The permit doesn't provide anyone with arms.