Orange County California has a new sheriff. What is one of her first acts?
“The good-cause threshold you have to meet has gone up,” Nighswonger said. “The prior sheriff had more of a right-to-carry philosophy. Some of the things that were considered good cause won’t be now.”
Orange County has now gone from, essentially, right to carry, to right denied, unless you can convince the Sheriff to allow you to exercise your right to self-defense. Hopefully she’ll deem you worthy.
Oh, and it looks like she has a blog. No comments though.
Really not missing that state… not at all.
The San Diego sheriff pretty much abided by the same mentality concerning CCW permits as well… And, until the state finally joins the modern era and adopts a “shall issue” law set, it will stay that way.
I like the psychological testing part, and the “License restrictions may be utilized for those holders who have situation-specific needs. ”
Sounds like it’ll be a case of “You can only carry to and from work” or somesuch nonsense.
Power can be intoxicating, can’t it?
At least she is consistant, she treats the first amendment the same as the second. Rather than censoring some speech, she will smother all speech. You know, to protect the reader from having to read something offensive.
Just like guns. Criminals might misuse guns, so we won’t be allowing decent people to carry them. Unless the sherrif thinks they are OK.
Orange County used to be one of those “staunch Republican” areas of California, but in recent years (like most of the state) it’s swung further and further towards the left. It’s too bad, really.
No comments means the coward has no spine, just like the Bradys.
I was prepared to accuse that until I read their explanation for the no comments, which I actually kind of see their point. As a government agency, they wouldn’t have the power to regulate content.
Oh this is rich!
“CCW licenses will be issued to persons of good and upstanding character who possess credible, significant, and substantiated cause to fear for their safety.”
I fear an ever encroaching government that does not recognize my rights. Is that reason enough for me to have one?
“Applicants may be required to submit to psychological or polygraph testing as part of the background investigation.”
So how I feel about my mother and what I see in an inkblot will be criteria for issuance. Beautiful! Polygraph test? Not admissible in court, but just fine for a CCW!
“Applicants may be required to submit a medical clearance letter from their physician.”
What is this letter supposed to say? That I don’t shake like Don Knotts when I hold a gun? LOL!
“CCW licenses will be issued to persons of good and upstanding character who possess credible, significant, and substantiated cause to fear for their safety.”
You mean like anyone who lives in California and might happen thru L.A. or any of the other cities?
“CCW licenses will not be issued for political, social or other reasons.”
You mean like the 2nd Amendment.
“A previous misdemeanor conviction within the last five years.”
Is that even legal?
Reason I ask is this bothers me greatly, I had a misdemeanor 10 yrs ago. Frankly, it was the lamest thing and should have been dismissed. However, I was in my early twenties. My family was going thru an economic collapse (a few months later we’d all be basically homeless). I didn’t know my rights. I was lied to by the DA. And I risked losing my job in order to take any additional time off. (Oh yeah, my crime…digging in a dumpster in a parking lot.)
I so hate this !@#$% government and it’s injustice system.
***
Oh and of course, if you try to click on the email them link it pops open a window with a pre-populated subject. Great!!!! Except there is no email address….
This is easy enough to beat.
Just tell the new sheriff that you need a CCW permit because her husband has threatened to use her office to harass you if you don’t have sex with him. Then if that’s not enough, tell her that one of her children is selling drugs in your neighborhood and has threatened you if you tell his mother.
sounds like an arbitrary and capricious licensing scheme to me… anyone in OC have a lawyer and a desire for a court battle?
I especially liked this part in their explanation:
Since the blog debuted, there have been several inquiries as to why comments are closed. The purpose of this blog is to allow the Sheriff and his staff to express their ideas and thoughts about the Department and items of interest that may involve or affect the Department.
Chris – “arbitrary & capricious” was my 1st thought. We know damn well it’ll be applied that way, and no doubt issuance of permits will end up being political.
If only we had incorporation….
It says “his” because it was instituted under Sheriff Corona. Look at the date, instead of assuming that they’re stupid. I guess it shows who the stupid one is…
Obviously it hasn’t been updated to reflect the new Sheriff.
Obviously they had time to update the Sheriff’s name and photo. I think your ad hominen just ricocheted.
Thanks for playing.
I just sent her an email, since comments are disabled…
“Citizens rights are such a pain. Since you can’t be omniscient on who should be granted permission to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights, why worry about their 1st Amendment rights, either? I think you should just ignore the whole Constitution, as it will make your job so much easier. Citizens and their pesky rights! Who do they think they are… Law enforcement? We should all be considered criminals until we can prove our innocence and ‘worthiness’ to you? Don’t bother with a reply. Your ignorance of the Constitution and blatant disrespect of honest American citizens disgusts me.”
Hopefully, her employment will not last long. Power corrupts…
Previously approved, and currently in progress permits have yet to be rejected or revoked.
The recently published policy differs only slightly from the official policy under Carona, yet Carona allowed the non-business-related frequent transport of valuable goods (guns) to be a cause worthy of issuance. OC has not been “shall issue” for a long time.
At the moment though; the Carona scandal is still news, and since the media seems to think Carona was handing out CCWs like candy at a parade, I suspect most of these public releases are meant to make her public role in the story as positive as possible while the mostly anti-ccw media is still interested. I expect (or hope) that after the media loses interest, there will be a small release that publicly states that Carona did not abuse the CCW system as much as was assumed. Orange county is, for the most part, pro-ccw and Hutchens knows she will not be reelected if she changes the CCW status quo (favoritism excluded, of course :)) Orange county is one of the very few heavily populated california counties that actually issued CCWs, and losing it would be quite a loss.
The only wild card is that she came out of retirement to accept this appointment, and it is not known if she will even seek reelection. If she doesn’t care about reelection, all bets are off.
I’ll reserve my judgment for after I start seeing reports of revocations and rejections. Only last week did she reopen processing for the reportedly 2 foot high stack of CCW apps.
Sent her an email with some questions about how to know exactly when criminals are going to hit you so you can apply for a permit before they do with an acceptable good cause rationale.
No reply expected…
This is essentially the policy in most of California, with the exception of parts of the Central Valley, and the northern and southeastern extremes of the state. The “good cause” requirement for issuance of a CCW is satisfied only when either:
(a) The applicant carries around large sums of cash as part of their job; or
(b) The applicant has been subjected to serious, credible threats of violent attack that law enforcement feels it can’t adequately protect against.
As a practical matter, the only people who meet the “good cause” requirement under criterion (b) are celebrities and the politically-connected.
Welcome to may-issue California.