As far as I know all of the apps in Sussex county go through one judge. This man has made it clear that you have to be very specific about your reason. I found this out from Mr. Marino that teaches CCDW classes in Sussex County, he read the letter directly to all of us in his class. You shouldn't be denied for this however, the judge will probably just request that you send in a more specific reason.
At least you don't have to go in for a hearing...I have no clue what it could be about because if it is a issue about my reasons then they would have kicked it back like yours.
I have an outside the waist band holster on its way in case my ccdw falls through. I can always open carry, which I plan to do while I wait on my ccdw.
There have been lots of posts going on around here debating this topic. My instructor had gotten word from the judge in my county that they were going to start rejecting permits if the, "For protection of self and property" was used. My guess is pretty much every permit came in with those reasons, and since the application DOES say to be very specific they got tired of seeing the same thing on every form.
When I submitted my application by reason was simply, "See Attached". Because I had an almost full page of various reasons why I wanted to carry concealed. In fact, one of my reasons specifically mentioned that I knew it was an open carry state, but didn't want to draw attention to myself, etc. I know the instructor that gave me my class has posted a few warnings about this happening, but most people didn't believe him for whatever reason. Hopefully this will help solidify what he was trying to relay.
The truth is, they don't really CARE what reasons you give assuming you don't put something silly like, "In case my bitches get out of line." or something like that...
There IS a reason they ask for SPECIFIC reasons though... It's to force you to stop and take a minute to THINK about why you want it for yourself... Filling out that sheet of reasons really made me think about a lot of things and really brought out a lot of reasons that I didn't even think of before doing it.