Dallas County Sheriff supports new responding officer warning system

Published 2:52 pm Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Alabama Sheriff’s Association announced the formation of a new responding officer warning system.

The Alabama Responding Warning System (AROWS) will allow officers to easily look up and verify concealed carry permits and the arrest history of anyone they pull over during traffic stops.

House Bill 308, introduced in the Alabama Legislature last week, codifies the AROWS system. In addition to the statewide concealed carry permit repository, HB308 also standardizes the appearance, size and information content of all concealed carry pistol permits across the state to better assist officers in recognizing fraudulent concealed carry permits.

Email newsletter signup

Dallas County Sheriff Mike Granthum supports the new system. The fee for a concealed pistol permit is $20 a year.

“I can’t speak for the rest of the state, but it’s very important for us in Dallas County,” Granthum said. “It gives us a database. We were lagging behind in the pistol permit. It helps us with funding, we buy office supplies and uniforms.”

Alabama Sheriff Association President and Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham said it’s important to protect law enforcement. Over the last 13 months, seven deaths of law enforcement officers in the state were killed from handgun violence.

“We owe an absolute duty to every Alabama officer who puts his life on the line for us every day to see that he or she makes it home to their family safely,” Cunningham said. “The AROWS system is a huge step towards arming him with as much information as possible to ensure that happens and we don’t suffer yet another officer shot or killed.”

Granthum said local residents should know AROWS doesn’t affect the state’s Open Carry law. A person must be 18 years can openly carry a firearm without a permit in public, but contained in a holster.

“You don’t need a permit to have a gun in your house,” Granthum said.