Where do I get a .gov top level domain?

Our local sheriff department is going to have my department create a special website just for them including a crime stoppers type of thing and all that, and lcso.gov is an available domain name. But we can't figure out where to register a .gov domain for the life of us. Everybody will register us a .net or a .com, but we would really like a gov domain since we are government. Any hints as to who is capable of doing that? Thanks a bunch!

//today is our mayors last day in office so we had a big party for him and I think I had too much cake and punch and now the sugar is making me all hyper active and jittery

There's only one registrar for .gov that I know of. You're going to laugh when you see how easy it would have been to find.

http://www.dotgov.gov/

Seriously, I laughed. That should be a common knowledge thing, almost like knowing how cereal is better with milk and up is never down unless you fall down walking up a flight of stairs.

ha ha ha I guess it's just one of those things you don't think about until it comes up... I wonder if it would be possible to snag one of those even if you're not a government organisation.....?

Nope.

I did also see that one of the requirements was something about municipal and county governments with elected officials, which fits us perfectly because out sheriff is elected.

too bad - would be cool to think up some loophole that would allow you to have a government-level domain.......... Start my own country? Claim independence... hold elections.... hmm............

I think the Mayor is going to need to send in a letter of authorization in addition to the forms you have to fill out.
https://www.dotgov.gov/auth_letter.aspx

Viva Petoria!

that's the kind of thing I'm talkin about

hehe, I live in Pretoria ... note the "r" ... really cool. lol.

You know, I even used to sell domains, and I never knew that! Is that common knowledge, because I must have been under a rock or something. I wonder if that is the same for Canada? I looked at the link, but it seems US only. I guess It would not matter, though
e l

Not certain how Canada works it and didn't find anything as simple as the US version. Seems like Canada ".gov" is handled more by province.

For example, British Columbia = http://www.gov.bc.ca
Nova Scotia = http://www.gov.ns.ca
saskatchewan = http://www.gov.sk.ca

etc...

Really, us Americans are the weirdos and oddballs. We just use .com, but in other countries (i.e. the UK) they will use .co.uk or .co.it (Italy), a lot of municipal governments like where I work kind of use this scheme. My domain at work is ci.north-platte.ne.us, my county is co.lincoln.ne.us, the city of Missoula MT is ci.missoula.mt.us, and so on. It makes perfect sense because it is the City of North-Platte Nebraska United States. This whole thing kind of reminds me of the whole standard vs. metric systems debate, where North America is using something totally different from the rest of the globe.