In his quest to become governor, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Adam Putnam clearly wants the state’s powerful gun vote on his side.

Putnam has lowered the fees for Florida’s popular Concealed Weapons Firearms License (CWFL).

He has expedited CWFL applications for active-duty military and veterans.

Some say he’s pandering to the gun community. I’m not there yet.

Florida Carry Inc. recently gave Putnam a way to prove his mettle to the millions of gun owners in the state by fixing serious problems with the CWFL application process.

So far, Putnam has ignored the request.

In a certified letter sent to Putnam August 3 and signed for by his staff five days later, Florida Carry’s general counsel Eric Friday spells out disturbing and ongoing problems within the Division of Licensing (DOL), which, ultimately, Putnam oversees.

While it’s not spelled out in the letter, none of the problems existed when Ken Wilkinson ran the DOL. Wilkinson was a rare breed — a public servant who took problems within his division extremely personally. He retired not too long ago and was replaced with Mr. Paul Pagano.

In his letter, Florida Carry’s attorney cited a 2014 meeting during which Wilkinson agreed to end indefinite suspensions of CWFL applications when a background check revealed “any criminal history regardless of its relevance to their qualification for a CWFL.”

“After our meeting, the DOL agreed to no longer indefinitely suspend applications and to make its own efforts to determine whether the individual was prohibited from having a CWFL,” Friday wrote. “The DOL further agreed to do so within an additional 90 days of the notice of suspension of processing the license.”

Well, they’re doing it again.

Since the 2014 meeting, and exacerbated by Wilkinson’s departure, Friday said his members have encountered “numerous problems.”

Pagano, Wilkinson’s replacement, told him the DOL was revoking the 2014 agreement, which said the DOL would “bear the burden of establishing an applicant’s disqualification.”

Pagano cited Florida statute Sec. 790.06, which he believes requires the DOL to obtain a final disposition before issuing a CWFL “no matter how long it took, and the DOL could not honor the agreement and comply with the statute.”

And there’s another problem — a more serious one.

The DOL, Friday states in his letter, is now “suspending applications on the basis of misdemeanors,” but not the disqualifying misdemeanors identified specifically in statute: a crime of violence within three years or domestic violence or drug charges.

A DOL hearing officer, Friday states, denied one Florida Carry member a CWFL based on a misdemeanor that was 40 years old.

The burden of proof should have shifted to the hearing officer, who should have verified that the four-decade old charge was either a felony or a disqualifying misdemeanor.

“No such evidence is identified in the order of the hearing officer,” Friday wrote. “The actions of the hearing officer in his instance are unconscionable. By his conduct he has ignored the testimony of the client that his conviction was for a misdemeanor. There is no evidence to support the hearing officer’s ruling and it is a clear abuse of his discretion.

“I have no way of knowing how many people have been similarly harmed by such blatant misconduct by the hearing officer,” Friday stated. “This misconduct ignores the evidence actually present and creates and untenable situation forcing law abiding citizens to spend thousands of dollars to appeal such bad rulings or wait indefinitely to exercise their right to bear arms until a faceless stranger says it’s okay.”

Friday cited Norman v. State, which held that a CWFL must be issued to any applicant that meets the statutory criteria and that the CWFL is “now a matter of right as it is the only method of bearing arms in Florida.”

Florida Carry’s letter to Putnam contained five demands — a letter from the DOL stating:

The Norman decision requires the DOL to not delay the issuance of a CWFL. Current technology no longer requires additional time beyond 90 days for a background check. All future CWFLs will be issued/denied within 90 days of the application regardless of the criminal history unless the applicant has a disqualifying conviction. All hearing officer will have to comply with statute and any rulings not supported by the evidence will result in discipline. The failure of another state to provide proof of disqualification within 90 days shall no longer be used to deny an applicant’s right to bear arms.

“Please respond by August 17, 2017 whether you will make the requested changes in the application process,” Friday wrote.

Now, a week after the deadline, Putnam has not responded to Florida Carry’s correspondence. Neither did he respond to a call I placed to his campaign office Thursday morning.

If he does, I shall let you know.