Bill to Ease Permits for Concealed Guns Gains

The National Rifle Assn.’s three-year effort to dilute local law enforcement’s control over who gets concealed weapons permits has resurfaced in the Legislature, sparking charges from critics that it is an ill-disguised attempt to put guns into the hands of more Californians.

Described by Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), a former lawman who usually sides with police and sheriffs, as a negotiated compromise, the legislation would compel police chiefs and county sheriffs to issue permits if an applicant meets specified criteria. Bolstering the NRA’s case is a 1986 Assembly Office of Research report that showed wide discrepancies and even favoritism in how police chiefs and sheriffs decide who will get permits.

Under current law, local law enforcement has near-total discretion over who receives a permit to carry a concealed handgun.

Objections Surface

For a while, it appeared that a deal had been struck to expeditiously move the bill. But 11th-hour objections from some of the state’s police chiefs are threatening to blow apart the fragile truce and reignite the highly emotional debate.

The bill cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday on a 7-0 vote. But Presley said he has agreed not to bring his bill up for a Senate vote until the police chiefs can reach a consensus.

“This is one more campaign by the gun lobby to have more people carrying guns in California,” said San Jose Police Chief Joseph D. McNamara, an outspoken advocate of handgun controls and critic of the NRA, which donated nearly $60,000 to legislative candidates in the 1986 elections.

“Once the NRA has a foot in the door, it will be easy for them to amend this or that section in the future,” said McNamara, who has been urging other members of the California Police Chiefs Assn. to oppose the Presley bill.

NRA lobbyist David S. Marshall said, “We sat down with law enforcement and negotiated in good faith. Nobody got everything they wanted . . . but this is a really remarkable piece of work.”

Presley said his goal is to make the concealed weapons permit system more even-handed while leaving sufficient safeguards in law enforcement’s hands. He said he doubts that his legislation would make much difference in the number of guns on California’s streets.

“I don’t want to give the NRA what it wants,” Presley said, “but I do want to address the inequities (in the present system). The problem is the police chiefs and sheriffs now have total control. . . . Some are hard-nosed (about handing out the permits) and some give them out willy-nilly.”

Bill’s Requirements

The Presley bill would require a police chief or sheriff to issue a permit to any applicant who is 21, a resident of the county, is not known to be violent and not known to be physically, mentally or emotionally incapable of safely carrying a concealed gun. The applicant would also have to demonstrate good cause for carrying a concealed weapon--such as a legitimate fear for personal safety because he or she frequently is called upon to carry large sums of cash--and must agree to take a course in the use of handguns.

The impetus for changing the present system comes from NRA lobbying that led to a 1986 study by the Assembly Office of Research. That study, issued under the title “Smoking Gun, the Case for Concealed Weapon Permit Reform,” was highly critical.

Local officials have broad discretion to issue the annual permits to any local resident “of good moral character” with “good cause”--undefined in current law--to carry a gun. But, the report found, there is wide disparity within the state. Some, mostly rural jurisdictions hand out permits liberally and others give almost none at all. Los Angeles County has a restrictive policy and the city of Los Angeles issues no permits.

Furthermore, the report found, in many cases those who receive permits are “personally known to the local sheriff or chief of police” and the “overwhelming majority of permit holders are white males.”

Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne) took up the NRA push to make permits available to anyone in the state who met specific conditions. His bill, hotly opposed by both the police chiefs and the California State Sheriffs Assn., cleared the Assembly last year but has been languishing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Floyd recently amended his bill to more closely resemble the Presley measure.

Mindful of the pressure to address abuses within the present system, the police chiefs and sheriffs groups came up with an alternative. Sponsored by Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord), that measure set out criteria but still left the final decision to local law enforcement. It, too, stalled in the Judiciary Committee.

Need for Change Seen

Presley, after chairing hearings on the issue last December, concluded that the system did indeed need to be changed and asked both sides to see whether they could come up with a compromise.

In addition to setting basic criteria for issuing permits, the compromise bill would allow local law enforcement authorities to place “reasonable restrictions” on when and where the concealed gun could be carried. The permit could be revoked if the holder was arrested for a felony or in the face of “clear convincing evidence” that the holder is likely to commit a violent crime or threaten another person. A permit would automatically be revoked if the holder is convicted of a felony or ruled by a court to be dangerously mentally disabled.

Names of the permit holders generally are public record in California, and the Presley measure makes no attempt to change that. However, a bill by Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia) proposes to allow the name of the permit holder to be kept secret if its release would pose a danger to the holder.

A major sticking point has been over whether police and sheriffs should retain the final approval. Many in law enforcement believe it is crucial to the public safety that they do, but the NRA insists that such a provision would essentially maintain the status quo and is therefore unacceptable. Some critics of the Presley bill claim it does not leave enough authority with police chiefs or sheriffs.

Alva S. Cooper, lobbyist for both the sheriffs and the police chiefs and a participant in the negotiations, said he urged both groups to back the Presley measure. The bill has been a hard sell, he acknowledged. Law enforcement officials are generally uneasy about an armed populace and the potential for vigilantism, especially since there is no evidence that an armed citizenry reduces the crime rate, Cooper said.

McNamara, who said he believes that public sentiment is running against much of the NRA’s agenda and “on the side of more reasonable controls,” said he does not see “why we need to compromise with the NRA. . . . This is bad legislation; it will bring mandatory issuance (of concealed gun permits) for the first time in California history.”

But the NRA’s Marshall said he gives “no credence” to McNamara’s views and does not believe the San Jose chief represents the views of most police chiefs.

The sheriffs endorsed the Presley bill, although apparently reluctantly. The police chiefs, however, do not expect to take a position until they meet Thursday.

“I don’t know how we will ultimately come out,” said West Covina Police Chief Craig L. Meacham, president of the organization. “But as it stands right now, our position would be opposed (to Presley’s bill).”

Meacham said his group realizes there are inequities in the current system that need to be corrected, but that they would best be addressed through “sweeping reforms, top to bottom” of all the state’s gun statutes.

“There is no question that this (Presley legislation) is going to relax permit procedures and there will be more guns out on the street,” Meacham said. “It’s like we’re saying, ‘Arm yourselves. It’s Wyatt Earp time.’ ”

The NRA’s Marshall said statements that the legislation would substantially increase the number of armed Californians are ridiculous. He estimates that from 250,000 to 500,000 Californians are carrying concealed weapons, some illegally because they cannot get permits if they live in areas with restrictive law enforcement agencies.

“This bill would preclude the whackos” and others from getting hidden gun permits by setting standards and requiring that an applicant demonstrate a need for the permit, Marshall said.

The legislation has drawn the wary attention of Handgun Control Inc., a national lobby that is tracking a uniform permit law the NRA pushed through in Florida last year. According to an investigation by the St. Petersburg Times, the law resulted in a burgeoning of concealed weapons permits, including some to violent felons and former mental patients.

While Handgun Control has not taken a position on the Presley proposal, its San Francisco-based lobbyist, Luis Tolley, said the group does “not oppose the legislation outright” but wants some stronger safeguards, such as thorough background checks of applicants, and believes violations should be treated as felonies instead of misdemeanors.