The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) have joined in a lawsuit against California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the state Department of Justice to prevent the destruction of crucial records on gun permit applications.
The suit filed on Dec. 31 seeks to block a new California law, AB-1044, that was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1. AB-1044 was sponsored by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who maintains that the Department of Justice was required as the “keeper of records” to accumulate applications, even though other laws, such as the Privacy Act, prevented public access to the information.
“For 18 years we have been wanting to rid ourselves of the applications, which we can do nothing with,” Lockyer spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said.
The law still allows watchdog groups to seek application information from sheriffs and chiefs of police throughout the state, Jordan said.
The suit, however, maintains that the state records offer the only assurance that the permit process is fair and free from abuse by the state’s 58 elected sheriffs and more than 300 police chiefs.
Pending a formal hearing scheduled for the week of Jan. 26 on the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, a representative from Lockyer’s office promised in court that no records would be destroyed until the outcome of that request is decided.
The files, said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, could provide “critical data” that may show how law enforcement officials in the Golden State have discriminated against minorities and women in the discretionary issuance of concealed pistol licenses (CPL).
“Normally,” Gottlieb said, “we would fight to protect the privacy of gunowners, but this is not a normal situation. If those records are destroyed, it could prevent California gunowners from ever finding out whether they have been the victims of ethnic or gender discrimination in their attempts to secure concealed pistol licenses.”
Joining in such a lawsuit is a rare event for CCRKBA, acknowledged Executive Director Joe Waldron. His organization is heavily involved in grassroots gun rights efforts, but the California situation “begged our attention,” he said.
“There may be few issues that are as ‘grassroots’ as concealed carry, and the right of individual citizens to bear arms in their defense,” Waldron noted.
CCRKBA actually took the lead in this case, with California gun rights lobbyist Jim March acting on behalf of the organization as a plaintiff. CCRKBA and SAF are represented by Sacramento attorneys Daniel M. Karalash and John Brophy.
March, himself denied nine times on attempts to secure a CPL from four different agencies since 1997, began researching denials in 1998. Using 1997 data obtained from the California Department of Justice—the most recent year for which March could get figures—and census figures from 2000, March determined that 10 counties in California have black populations exceeding the state average African-American population of 6.7%. In those 10 counties, only 6,373 CPLs had been issued, while in the remaining “white counties,” 32,591 licenses had been issued, for a total (at that time) of 38,964 CPLs. More recent data is not available to the general public, March lamented, but The Sacramento Bee reported that unidentified state officials say there are currently 40,643 Californians licensed to carry.
How many are celebrities like Sean Penn, who last year lost two handguns from his car to a thief, is not known.
It was about that time, in 1998, that March read an essay by historian Clayton Cramer called, The Racist Roots of Gun Control.
“I realized I was looking at a modern day incarnation of what he was talking about,” March observed.
Breaking down the statistics further, March said there was one CPL holder for every 869 California residents, but in the so-called white counties, there was one CPL holder for every 525 residents while in the so-called black counties, there was only one licensee for every 2,627 residents. Put another way, March estimated the ratio to be nearly 6-to-1 in the number of CPLs issued to residents of “white counties” as opposed to residents in “black counties.”
March told Gun Week that the issue goes far beyond the number of African-Americans who have been denied. He pointed to women and Hispanics as having been particularly victimized by the denial process. He said that he learned, during meetings with state officials, that few permit holders have Hispanic last names, and that there are also few women with CPLs.
March recalled that in 1995, The Fresno Bee looked at the data regarding the 2,500 CPLs that were issued in Fresno County, which had a population that ran about 44% Hispanic. However, in checking the list of CPL holders the newspaper found only 3% of those persons had Hispanic last names, March said.
At the time the lawsuit was filed, Waldron disclosed that gun rights activists in California had alleged to CCRKBA months ago that there appeared to be a pattern of discrimination in the issuance, and more importantly, the denial of carry licenses. He noted that “there may be an even larger pattern of entire communities, with high minority populations, having been completely ‘red-lined’ by local sheriffs for blanket non-issue of permits to anyone living in those communities.”
March’s data tends to support those allegations, but in order to confirm discrimination, March said access to the denial records is essential.
March told Gun Week that over the past five years, his research into the problem has uncovered indications of what he believes might also be a pattern of favoritism by at least a couple of county sheriffs who have granted CPLs to campaign supporters, while other citizens were denied. In March’s own experience in 1997 and 1999, he sought to apply for a CPL in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and the cities of San Leandro and Richmond. In all four cases, the law enforcement agencies would not even allow him to apply for a license.
“They refused to give me the application forms,” he recalled.
Two weeks after the last denials, in March 1999, March filed a lawsuit in Contra Costa County Superior Court alleging discrimination and a denial of due process. Within three months, the Richmond Police Department voluntarily began making the CPL application forms available.
March applied, and was again denied. He also applied with the city of Pittsburg, and was again denied. He then filed a lawsuit in federal court, working with a private grant, but that lawsuit went nowhere, for what March insisted was a very unusual reason.
“The judge said my claims of racial bias were interesting,” March recalled, “but since I am white, I was not allowed to raise that issue. . . . Since I was not black or Hispanic, they didn’t allow me to make a claim of racism.”
His lawsuit against the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department was dismissed without prejudice in December 1999 after the county advised the judge that applications were, by then, being made available, March said.
Concurrently, but not related to the CCRKBA/SAF lawsuit, a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Sacramento against Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas. That lawsuit was filed on behalf of a state worker by Karalash and attorney Gary Gorski. Gorski recently failed in an effort to get the US Supreme Court to review a lawsuit seeking to overturn the California assault weapons ban.
Gorski’s lawsuit, according to The Sacramento Bee, alleges that Blanas discriminates in the issuance of CPLs in favor of people who contribute to his political campaigns. The Gorski lawsuit alleges that Blanas “has personally taken in over $100,000 in campaign contributions” from a small base of CPL recipients.
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