Orange Co. CA sheriff decides there's too many CCW permits

This is just about enough ... the legislatures are not doing enough. There is going to have to be litigation regarding the lawful carry of arms.

After all, the 2A protects our right to carry arms. The infringements we deal with over this issues are just not right ... they are unconstitutional.

In fact, the US Supreme Court just confirmed the meaning of the words forming the operative clause in the second amendment ... "we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation."

there is evidence the outgoing (indicted) sheriff issued them to campaign workers and buddies.

I moved from that county (very Republican Orange County, not to be confused with very Democratic Los Angeles County), so I've kept a little abreast of the situation - this is exactly *why* she started the revocation effort (to "clean up" the image of a corrupted sheriff's office), but instead of just working from a list of names of the suspected folks who got their CCW by donating or being buddies with the old sheriff, she's going wholesale through all existing permits, requiring holders to "show good cause" or have their permits revoked. Shameful, and obvious.

She was a retired sheriff from Los Angeles County who was appointed earlier this year by the County Board of Supervisors to be the interim sheriff until a new one could be elected (which doesn't happen until 2010 I believe). Why they picked a former sheriff from a county as different politically as Los Angeles, no one knows.

California's "may issue" law is on line here.

It's clear the sheriff may decline to renew a permit for any reason or no reason.

But she has been asked at a Board of Supervisors meeting to explain the theory under which she gets to revoke an existing permit absent disqualifying behavior by the permit holder (ignoring favoritism by Sheriff Carona, her predecessor - that seems a necessary consequence of "may issue"). There has been no reply to that question, and there is no prominent part of the Penal Code which appears to support her current plans.

Hey this is just a holding pattern until the One decides that carry is not necessary and will issue an executive order or something against it. Thta is already being talked about on liberal sites.

This is what happens when a person behind a “bureau”—i.e., behind a desk, a “bureaucrat,” which is a person whose authority consists merely of the fact that s/he occupies a certain desk—gets one teeny, tiny scintilla of “power.”

Her only power in this issue is to deny someone’s rights.

What are those rights?

“To keep (own) and bear (CARRY)” are what those rights are.

There are TWO rights.

But what happens when a bureaucrat gets one teeny, tiny scintilla of “power?”

Suddenly, those two rights get whittled down to ONE right by her (or him—in this case her).

On what basis is that right exercised?

Who gets to exercise his right to bear arms for what she deems “good cause?”

“Hutchens said good cause could include people whose jobs place them in danger -- such as jewelers . . .”

So let’s see, if a certain amount of money or wealth is involved, then there is good cause to protect your life and the lives of your loved ones who might happen to be with you.

But if no amount of wealth—which she arbitrarily determines to be or not to be significant—is involved, then your constitutional right does not exist.

So, in order to exercise this right with “good cause,” according to the good sheriff, you have to be in possession of property of a certain value.

That is unconstitutional.

It is not only a blatant violation of the 2nd amendment, ratified Dec. 15, 1791, which recognizes that a member of the “people” has the right to carry a gun.

That is a violation of the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment, which was ratified July 9, 1868, for the express purpose of ensuring that no political entity from the federal level down can deny any of the rights already delineated in the Bill of Rights.

Does Sheriff Hutchens care about not violating your rights?

Apparently not.

And the right to protect your life and the life of your loved ones is tantamount to the right to life itself.

If she is willing to violate that right, which other rights of yours is she willing to violate?

She might allow you to exercise your right if you are among those “people whose lives have been threatened,” but how does that work?

Let’s see: 1) someone threatens your life, 2) you then call for a “time out,” 3) you go down to the Sheriff’s office, 4) you fill out a form and pay a fee, 5) you wait several weeks, and if you are granted your already existing right, 6) you then take a training class, 7) pass a background check and meet other qualifications which she imposes, 8) you wait to receive your permit, then 9) you go back to the scene of the crime where the criminal is patiently waiting for you to return from the time out, and then 10) you defend your right to life?

What did St. George Tucker, revolutionary war hero who fought at the battle (among others) of Yorktown, have to say about the Second Amendment of the Constitution in his book which served as the primary textbook in American law schools for decades?

This [the Second Amendment] may be considered as the true palladium of liberty .... The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.

“Wherever . . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
http://www.constitution.org/tb/t1d12000.htm

How true. Especially after November 4, 2008.

Tarn Helm, excellent reasoning.

The California Supreme Court has ruled that the 2nd Amendment does not apply to California.

Go fish.

Tarn Helm, you are attempting to deal rationally with the irrational.