It's cause hpd has streamlined the process to reduce wait times, just like their editorial post in the paper explained, so say thank you to the officers next time your down there.
While I do like the officers who have always been helpful and courteous during the registration process and think it can't hurt to thank them for a job generally well done, I disagree that the reduced wait times are due to the process changes they mentioned.
I don't get the sense that the line moves any faster than it did before or after the madness or any procedural changes.
They claim to come out and poll the line to check for people just picking up permits (and I don't doubt they do that occasionally) but I was there for 1.5 hours the other day and they never did that. I don't see why they couldn't do that every 30 min, or make a seperate line to save people time when it's even a little bit busy.
Also, the change to close up the glass doors at 3pm does not make sense. I understand if there is a long line outside that they need to cut it off somewhere so they can get out of there at 4pm, but if there is no line (or a very short line) inside there is no need to close early. I hope they change this policy back to a flexible closing of the doors, like it used to be, as this short-changes the public in the hours open needlessly at times.
Not sure who makes/changes the policy and tend to doubt it's the officers actually doing the registering, but the policy could be a lot better with no effort.
The reason the lines are shorter has got to be simply that there are less guns being bought now with less panic. Works for me.