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WildBill wrote:

JALLEN wrote:The good news is that the process is so smooth, efficient and low cost that it is not a bother. I learned about this here on the forum, went online and filled out the paperwork in less than 15 minutes, at a cost of $70. I still have to do the class, and give fingerprints. How hard is that?

If I recited all the nonsense I had to do to get a California permit, you would pass out.

You actually got a California permit.

Yes. There are something like 2000 in San Diego County. Permits are issued by the County Sheriffs. Once issued by the Sheriff in the county of your residence, they are valid statewide. Sheriffs can interpret the statute just about as they please, ranging from "no issue" in SF and LA, now OC probably, to "shall issue" in the rural counties. Recently retired Sheriff Jim Allen (same name, not me!) made no secret of his views and if you had no disqualifying record, you got your permit, if you lived in Mariposa County, IIRC.

The critical factor is "good cause." Good cause is whatever the Sheriff says it is, apparently. In my case, as a long time attorney and business owner, including a foreclosure trustee, who got occasional death threats, long ties to the community, a spotless record, solid recommendations from stable citizens who had known me for decades, that was good enough. The whole process was long, involved, minutely documented, and costly. I took the class the Sheriff required, did the firing with the three handguns allowed on a permit, by make, model, and serial number, all of which are on the DOJ list of approved handguns, and produced all the documentation of each and every claim I made, including the death threats. These are just the highlights. The doing of it was a complete pain.

The permit has restrictions, such as no carry if you have alcohol or drugs in your system, only the three specific pistols listed on your permit, business purposes only, whatever that means and a host of others which reduces the flexibility of it to almost zero. I suppose I was expected to ask, whenever threatened, whether the threat was business or merely personal.

Permits are sufficiently rare that a bad guy has more chance of being hit by lightning than encountering a legally armed citizen.

The good news is that the process is so smooth, efficient and low cost that it is not a bother. I learned about this here on the forum, went online and filled out the paperwork in less than 15 minutes, at a cost of $70. I still have to do the class, and give fingerprints. How hard is that?

If I recited all the nonsense I had to do to get a California permit, you would pass out.