by Bob Walsh
There have in the past been FOIA actions by news outlets against law enforcement organization to get the names of gun permit holders. Sometimes this was to show that the issuing agency was in fact handing out permits only to political friends of financial supporters of the Sheriff. (If I recall Orange County got in serious trouble on this.)
It now MAY (depending on how you look at it) be being used to attempt to harass and intimidate permit holders.
The S. F. Chronicle is attempted to get the names of the 3,700 permit holders in Sutter County. This is one of the small "cow counties" up in the foothills where it has traditionally been easy for a law-abiding person to get a permit. I have even heard of people from SF and Oakland establishing a legal residence (i.e. rented apartment) in these counties just for the purposes of getting a permit, which they could not get elsewhere. (No idea if that is actually true or not.)
The denizens of the county are pissed, and it has caused the Chronicle to have to up their physical security. The paper is getting threats and harassment over their filing to get this information.
The paper promises that they will not actually publish the names, they just want to see if the system is being misused. Yeah.
The paper gave a bunch of grief to the Santa Clara Sheriff's Office last year when it revealed that one of the very few gun permits issued in that county was to the head of a security company that kicked down $45,000 to the Sheriff's election campaign.
The Chronicle says they are requesting the info from all 58 counties. Under the current law the Sheriff has to notify the permit holders, and supply the information to the paper.
1 comment:
Harass gun permit holders? I can think of other targets that would be safer to harass. In Texas, concealed carry holders can openly carry. You don't see many open carry folks but when you do you don't mess with them. The media did this in New York and were surprised at who held gun permits but in the end it really didn't make any difference.
I think it's funny when the media thinks it has uncovered political favors. Political favors are nothing new. Why would people be surprised?
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