SOMETIMES THERE ARE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

By Bob Walsh

The right-ability to carry a firearm in the formerly great state of California has had its ups and downs. For the longest time you could open carry, though if you did so in a large city, like San Francisco or L. A. you could count on being harassed by the police and probably arrested for “disturbing the peace.” Your gun would disappear somewhere in the evidence room when it came time to release you.

Then, in the 1960s, the Black Panthers pissed in the soup. I think it was in1967 when a bunch of them stormed into the capital building while the legislature was in session carrying weapons. It scared the dogshit out of the legislature in large part because it seemed they were not violating any laws by doing so. (In actual fact they were in violation of an obscure section of the Fish and Game code but nobody knew that at the time.) The legislature then passed thru both houses of the legislature and bill that outlawed open carry. The bill was passed into law on an emergency basis in less than two hours, signed by the governor immediately and sent out on the teletype.

So we go to concealed carry. If you lived in the cow counties you could get a gun permit with little trouble. If you lived in S. F. you had to have major political connections. If you lived in Orange County you had to donate to the Sheriff’s reelection campaign. If you lived in the city of L. A. you were just plain fucked.

Local Sheriffs could issue to anyone with a legit residence or business address in the county, but typically if that address was in a city limit they would not do so and would defer to the city Chief of Police. Due to a quirk in the wording of the law a local Chief of Police could issue a permit to anybody who lived within the county that the city was located in. The city of Isleton did so for a period of time, essentially as a revenue enhancement, until the law was changed. They were the
only one that did so as far as I know.

Then came the court cases. A year or two back the courts decided that since open carry was no longer an option local permit issuing agencies MUST issue permits to applicants unless they could justify not doing so on an individual basis. It was appealed. On Monday of this week the Ninth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for a rehearing of the matter. So now, in the formerly great state of California, the decision to issue or not issue a gun permit is again pretty much totally at the discretion of the issuing agency.

EDITOR’S NOTE: When the Black Panthers invaded the State Capitol they were carrying rifles and shotguns, not handguns.