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THE METS ARE LOADED

Go ahead, Met fans – make their day.

Sluggers David Wright and Carlos Delgado are two of the city’s newest young guns – both were granted pistol permits over the last year.

Wright’s permit allows him to keep a handgun at his $6 million Flatiron District penthouse. The Met third baseman, a 25-year- old Virginia native, is no stranger to pistols; his father is a police chief.

First baseman Delgado, 36, applied for a permit to carry a gun – which was denied – but was granted permission to keep one in his Upper East Side apartment, according to a source familiar with the process.

Former Met Shawn Green, 35, also applied for a carry permit last year, but was denied, the source said.

Wright and Delgado, whose team has enraged and disappointed fans two years in a row with late-season collapses, are among some 36,000 people with gun permits in the Big Apple – a list that includes celebrities, billionaires and politicians.

The number of permits has dropped to 35,210, following a downward trend since 2003, when there were 41,173 active license holders, according to the NYPD, which issues the permits.

“The process can be intimidating and grueling. It may take up to 18 months,” said Manhattan lawyer John Chambers, who has specialized in gun licenses for 20 years. “And New York is probably one of the most difficult cities in which to get a concealed-carry license.”

It costs $340 to file a permit application, and there’s a $94.25 fingerprinting fee.

Among those permitted to carry guns are Robert De Niro, artificial-heart inventor Robert Jarvik, Donald Trump and billionaire supermarket king John Catsimatidis.

To qualify for carry permits, applicants must show documented threats against them or prove that they routinely transport cash or valuables in business.

Carrying a firearm without a permit is a felony punishable by more than a year in prison. Permit holders must get them renewed every three years.

Gristedes grocery mogul Catsimatidis, who mulled an election run against anti-gun Mayor Bloomberg, has held a license for nearly 30 years, said spokesman Rob Ryan.

“He got it back then for the obvious reasons,” Ryan said. “New York was a very different place back then. If the business lost a day’s worth of receipts, it could drive him out of business.”

Permit holder Alexis Stewart, daughter of homemaking queen and ex-convict Martha Stewart, told The Post that she applied for a gun license after 9/11.

She said she got a gun, now kept in a lockbox in her $3 million TriBeCa apartment, to euthanize her elderly dogs in the event that another calamity struck and forced her to abandon them.

“I had two very old English bulldogs,” said Stewart, who hosts a show on her mother’s Sirius Satellite Radio channel.

“They could never make it out of Manhattan. I could never leave my dogs to die of thirst in my apartment, so I looked on it as a euthanasia situation. I would never kill my pets unless they were going to die anyway.”

Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr., also have permits to keep guns in their residences. His daughter, Ivanka, does not.

Additional reporting by Brad Hamilton and Susan Edelman

rblau@nypost.com