A new federal lawsuit claims the NYPD License Division’s “excessive, unreasonable, and unjustifiable delays” in handling firearm permit applications are a violation of New Yorkers’ Second Amendment right to bear arms.

“The NYPD was not ready for the volume,” Jason Tsulis, a gun license holder and plaintiff in the suit, said. “They did not have the proper training.”

Last week, NY1 aired a report about complaints from Tsulis and other gun applicants who had to hire attorneys to get the NYPD to act on their concealed carry permits.

“I felt like something was bestowed to me when I should have owned it to begin with,” Tsulis said.

The gun community is turning to the courts to get firearms and challenge more regulations, ever since a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision, called Bruen, struck down New York’s restrictions on people carrying firearms in public.

“As many of us said, including myself, Bruen would open the floodgates to litigation,” Richard Aborn, an attorney and long-time gun advocate, said.

A prediction that proved true, he said.

“There are now lawsuits all over the country, including in our own state, trying to challenge gun control laws that we’ve passed and some are succeeding,” Aborn said.

Mirel Fisch, the attorney who helped Tsulis get his concealed carry license, filed the federal lawsuit.

“Until there is a federal decision holding that an excessive delay violates the Second Amendment, it will take a significant amount of time until people can actually exercise their rights,” Fisch said.

Under state law, licensing officials must act within six months or give a good reason for delaying an applicant, which rarely happens, applicants said.

“The first named plaintiff, that was about 17 months,” Fisch said.

The suit also detailed screw ups at the NYPD.

“Once I went there and picked it up, there was somebody else’s picture on my license," Tsulis said.

The NYPD declined to comment on the lawsuit. For NY1’s original report, the NYPD said in a statement the process can be lengthy for thorough screening.

The NYPD received 9,432 new applications for concealed carry permits last year alone. Before the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, the NYPD got hundreds of applications a year.

Another federal suit against the city is seeking class action status for all applicants who have been waiting for gun licenses longer than six months.

“People are waiting far too long to be able to exercise their constitutional rights,” Peter Tilem, the attorney who filed the suit, said.