Provision streamlining gun permits for elected officials is stricken from bill
Reporting from Sacramento -- California politicians who want to carry weapons will still have to go through the same permit process as everyone else, at least for now.
A bill that would have streamlined the state’s gun permit process for them was stripped of that controversial provision Tuesday, before a legislative committee passed the rest of the measure. Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood), author of the bill, said he hoped to revisit the idea later.
State residents who apply for a permit to carry a concealed weapon must show good cause for one. That can include dangerous work or threats of violence. Wright’s measure would have established that good cause existed in elected officials’ need for “for protection or self-defense.”
Some legislators objected to special treatment for lawmakers over people in many other professions, including teachers and parking enforcement officers, who could make the same case for good cause.
Without the controversial provision, the bill, SB 610, would set a uniform timetable for sheriff and police action on all permit applications. It would also allow a good cause determination before an applicant goes through the trouble and expense of gun safety training rather than after, as is the case now.
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