Les Jones

Guns > FBI Investigates CCW Cronyism in California

From the Sacramento Bee via The High Road:

The FBI is looking into concealed-gun permits issued by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, according to documents filed in a lawsuit that alleges former Sheriff Lou Blanas issued permits as political favors.

Documents filed Friday in the federal civil rights suit say FBI investigators have requested gun permit documents from the department, which include a permit Blanas issued to Sacramento businessman Edwin G. Gerber. Gerber gave $3,500 to Blanas' election campaign, election records show, and bought a vacation home with Blanas in Reno in the fall of 2005, according to property records.

The former sheriff signed Gerber's gun permit a day before leaving office last summer. He issued the approval without following the department's usual procedure, which calls for a three-person committee to review applications from people asking to carry a loaded gun in public, according to interviews and court documents.

This sort of thing is why so a majority of U.S. states have gone to shall-issue concealed carry weapons (CCW) permits. As opposed to discretionary systems, under a shall-issue system law enforcement automatically issues CCW permits for citizens who legally qualify. In other words, shall-issue makes CCW permits just like building permits, driver's licenses, marriage licenses, business licenses, and most other bureaucratic permitting processes in first world democracies.

From Clayton Cramer:

California is one of a small number of states that still has a discretionary concealed handgun carry statute that grants nearly unlimited discretion to a sheriff or police chief whether to issue a permit or not. When this law that when first passed in 1923, it was part of a bill that was explicitly stated by supporters as part of a strategy to disarm Hispanics and Chinese:

it will have a salutary effect in checking tong wars among the Chinese and vendettas among our people who are of Latin descent.

This is not really a surprise; racism is one of the three pillars of American gun control law.

There have been problems for my entire adult life with California sheriffs issuing permits to political supporters and big campaign contributors, as my friend Jim March has documented in detail here.

The corruption is ongoing--not just history. Los Angeles County Sheriff Baca has pulled some pretty sleazy stuff in this area, as this June 15, 2007 MSNBC report discusses