Fresno--Dodge City Redux?

Ordinarily, the threat of being chased by a dog wouldn’t provide one ounce of justification for police to give a bicyclist a concealed-weapon permit. That’s because police in most California jurisdictions, including Los Angeles and Orange counties, quite appropriately require any citizen who applies for such a permit to produce convincing evidence that carrying a firearm would help prevent great harm or even death.

However, elected officials in Fresno are playing politics by promising voters more lenient standards in the issuing of concealed-weapon permits. That’s a dangerous game with serious implications for law enforcement authorities and citizens across the state.

The permits, also called CCWs (carry concealed weapons), allow the bearers to carry legal firearms hidden on their persons or in their vehicles anywhere in California, any time. Given the level of violence that plagues this society, these permits are not to be taken lightly.

That is why it is so troubling that Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson and some City Council members seem prepared to extend that privilege to almost all comers. They propose, against the sound advice of Fresno Police Chief Ed Winchester, an ordinance that would allow anyone with “good cause,” no felony convictions and no history of mental infirmity to obtain a CCW.

Under those standards, law enforcement officials in the Central Valley city estimate that more than 200,000 people could pack pistols in public--including the Fresno woman who called police about the pernicious pooch.

The mayor boasts that passage of the ordinance would place Fresno in a “leadership position in California.” Unfortunately, that would mean leading California in the wrong direction--further down the road of gun violence.