Sheriffs in California say they’ve been swamped with requests for concealed carry permits since last month’s court ruling that residents only have to show a desire for self-defense — and little else — in order to take advantage of the right.
The 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Feb. 13 that said authorities couldn’t deny any lawful gun owner a concealed carry permit so long as the applicant stated the goal was self-defense — and in so doing, struck down the law that required an applicant prove a “clear and present danger,” the Associated Press reported.
Since then, the state’s 58 county sheriff’s departments and state police agencies have been inundated with conceal carry permit applications. But the numbers haven’t been tabulated.
An estimated 58,000 of California’s 58 million residents have concealed carry permits, AP reported. And while Alameda County sheriff Greg Ahern said in the news outlet that his agency’s seen a spike in applications, he couldn’t say how many have been processed.
Orange County, meanwhile, said it’s fielded about 1,000 requests since the court ruling, about double what it normally receives. Ventura, San Joaquin, San Diego and other smaller-sized counties reported surges of applications — but didn’t have the numbers at hand, AP reported.
They did, however, confirm receipt of hundreds of permit requests in the past three or four weeks, far exceeds what they usually process, the sheriff departments reported.
The court of appeals ruling came on the heels of a National Rifle Association campaign aimed at scaling back gun-control laws around the nation that seemed to mirror the strict rules that were in place in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of the District’s gun laws in 2008, opening the doors for all law-abiding city citizens to own handguns.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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