Allegations that Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith and some of her top brass traded concealed weapons permits to a private company protecting top Facebook officials in return for a large campaign donation have dogged Smith since July and August, when the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office began serving search warrants on homes of top department officials and searched the sheriff’s headquarters.

The primary focus of DA investigators – at least publicly – has been a $45,000 donation from Martin Nielsen, the leader of the AS Solution private protection firm, to the Santa Clara County Public Safety Alliance, a political action committee that backed Sheriff Smith in the 2018 election cycle and helped her win a sixth term. AS Solution operatives subsequently got several permits.

In September, San Jose Inside – the online website that broke the story of the probe in August – and other outlets reported that in 2018, there had been a deposit of $70,000 into Nielsen’s Citibank account just before he made the donation to the pro-Smith PAC. That raises the prospect of someone or some organization trying to launder campaign contributions, which is a violation of state law. San Jose Inside also reported last month that Santa Clara County Undersheriff Rick Sung had his home raided and some electronics confiscated by the DA’s office.

Report faults lack of standards on permits

Meanwhile, the San Jose Mercury-News reported last week that four Apple security executives had obtained concealed weapon permits. Last month, the newspaper reported that a review of permit records it obtained from the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department showed apparent favoritism toward well-connected applicants and a lack of guidelines on when the permits should be issued. The report quoted a law enforcement official as saying permit decisions were based solely on the views of Smith – the first woman county sheriff in California history – and her top aides. 

But as a 2017 report by state Auditor Elaine Howle suggested, controversies like the current one in Santa Clara are close to inevitable because a century-old state law gives extraordinary discretion to county sheriffs and police chiefs in deciding which civilians get to carry a gun as they got about their lives.

The law says those applying for permits must demonstrate a “good cause” for a concealed weapon, must have “good moral character” and must complete a weapons-safety training course.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, this flexibility has led to the issuing of zero concealed weapons permits in San Francisco, with a population of nearly 900,000, and to 2,300 winning approval in Solano County, with half the number of residents.

The state auditor wrote in 2017 that there was nothing inherently wrong with local governments having different standards and that she found no evidence of wrongdoing in the awarding of permits in Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego counties, which were the focus of her review.

CCW records often kept private for a year or more

But that hasn’t stopped years of headlines and letters to the editor questioning sheriffs and police chiefs for their decisions on permits and their lack of transparency on the topic. Many agencies take a year or more in responding to requests for related public documents.

Meanwhile, prosecutors face roadblocks in proving that campaign donations are the equivalent of bribes, especially in cases that are years old. The case of former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona illustrates this. In 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that Carona – first elected in 1998 – had issued 86 badges to his early political supporters that allowed them to carry concealed weapons. In 2007, former Assistant Sheriff John Haidl testified in Carona’s criminal trial that the badge program was explicitly created to boost Carona’s political war chest. The case presented by prosecutors included recordings of three conversations between Carona and Haidl in which Haidl wore a wire. The men talked about how to coordinate their stories to obstruct the federal probe of the badge program. 

But in 2009, a jury found Carona guilty of only one felony count of witness tampering. Carona’s lawyers targeted the credibility of Haidl – a Newport Beach businessman with no law enforcement experience – and argued that the statute of limitations had expired on most of the charges against the former sheriff.

Carona was sentenced to five and a half years in a federal prison.

Gun rights groups have turned up the heat on Sacramento’s newest firearms restrictions, mounting an effort to repeal seven fresh laws through the ballot this election year. 

“The group ‘Veto Gunmageddon’ needs to collect 360,000 signatures for each measure by the end of the month to get them before voters in November, KCBS San Francisco reported. An uphill battle awaits. “Lawmakers passed a dozen gun control bills in June, seven of which Brown signed into law, including legislation requiring background checks for ammunition purchases and a ban on possession of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds,” as the San Jose Mercury News observed. Those provisions, the paper added, were identical to proposals Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom touted independently in his early-bird bid to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018.

Political powder keg

Although Democratic lawmakers irked by the redundancy have won out, analysts have speculated that Newsom could wind up benefiting most from politicking the Gunmageddon ordeal. “He will be able to say gun restrictions are under attack and that it’s more important than ever to pass my ballot measure,” Loyola Law School’s Jessica Levinson told the Mercury News.

What’s more, Newsom and his allies have already stockpiled a huge amount of cash relative to opponents of the Proposition 63 ballot measure. Prop. 63 “would ban possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines, require background checks for Californians buying bullets, create a process for getting felons to relinquish firearms and mandate reporting of lost or stolen guns,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “Newsom’s Safety for All Committee reported it has raised $3.8 million so far, compared with $467,000 raised by two committees opposing” Prop. 63.

Supreme struggles

The scramble to settle the fate of the state’s gun laws in the court of popular opinion has played out against the backdrop of a very different kind of legal battle — one where the public’s voice could count for nearly nothing. Gun activists succeeded in pursuing a controversial case to the door of the U.S. Supreme Court. Although judges recently shot down their suit against the state of California, which requires a license for concealed carry outside one’s home, the groups vowed to seek a final decision from the nation’s highest court. “The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the law in June, ruling 7-4 that there is no constitutional right to carry concealed weapons in public,” the San Francisco Chronicle recalled. “Opponents sought a rehearing before the entire appeals court, but the court said […] that the request had failed to win a majority among its 28 active judges. No vote total was announced.”

“The century-old state law requires handgun owners to obtain a permit from a local law enforcement agency before they can legally pack their weapons in public. The permits are virtually unavailable to anyone except police and security guards in most metropolitan areas, but are issued in most rural and inland areas to any adult who asserts a need for self-defense and does not have a disqualifying criminal record.”

A rush to bear arms

Californians have been loading up on firearms this year. At their current pace, Golden Staters will cross the million gun threshold by January. “The soaring gun sale totals — which show 554,203 firearms sales through late July — come in the wake of mass shootings in Orlando and Dallas, followed by calls for gun control legislation,” Southern California Public Radio noted, citing new data obtained from the Dealer Record of Sales, a gun tracking system run by the state’s Department of Justice. “The system shows gun sales on track to surpass 2015 nearly everywhere in the state,” the station added, although “the percentage of households in the U.S. with guns in them has been falling for decades.”

Affordable housing deal appears dead for the year

Good morning and TGIF! The legislative session drew one day closer to its conclusion — and it appears that one of the biggest outstanding policy issues is done for the year.

A deal to spur the construction of low-income housing statewide has apparently fallen apart, according to multiple media reports.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, said talks have died for the year, largely because of Gov. Jerry Brown’s insistence on including provisions that would speed up development by relaxing requirements in the approval process — an idea that angered many local government officials.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• “A new federal court ruling offers some reassurance that no federal authority can pull the plug on state-approved medicinal pot use,” writes CalWatchdog.
• Stockton’s mayor has “pleaded not guilty to criminal charges connected to a strip poker game with teen counselors at a summer camp for underprivileged children,” writes The San Jose Mercury News/AP.
• “A controversial bill that would decriminalize prostitution for minors squeezed out of the California Assembly on Thursday and is now headed back to the Senate for a final vote,” writes the Los Angeles Times. 
• “Kern High School District officials began allowing non-employee concealed carry weapon permit holders to bring firearms on campus Wednesday, but with a cost that at least one trustee said presents ‘obstacles’ to armed citizens,” reports The Bakersfield Californian. 

Assembly:

• In at 9 a.m.

Senate:

• In at 9 a.m.

Gov. Brown: 

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @madsfranklin 

“Proposed by state Democrats, SB707 passed the Senate in a 23-12 vote in June sending it to the Assembly where it cleared in a largely partisan 54-24 roll call in September, moving it to Brown’s desk,” as Guns.com recounted. “Despite widespread resistance to the bill by state and national gun rights groups that included threats of litigation and 40,000 opposition letters delivered to Brown’s office last week, the governor was not swayed.”

The change upended prior state law, which had not circumscribed the gun rights of permit holders. “Those with concealed-weapons permits had previously been allowed to enter a college or university campus with weapons at will,” the International Business Times observed. State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, introduced the bill in an effort to close what she called a loophole in the 1995 Gun Free Schools Act, which “prohibits a person from possessing a firearm in a place that the person knows, or reasonably should know, is a school zone, unless with the written permission of certain school district officials,” as the Vallejo Times-Herald noted.

California already boasted one of the strictest regimes in the country for regulating guns. “The new law bolsters existing restrictions in the state that prohibit the possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school or college campus without written permission from administrators, and comes less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, killing nine people and wounding nine others,” Bloomberg Politics reported. Oregon was one of eight states to legalize so-called “campus carry.”

College crisis

A recent spate of shootings has ratcheted up the fight over whether popularizing concealed carry would increase or decrease public safety. “The fight over whether guns should be allowed on college campuses is gaining prominence nationally. Advocates argue that students may be able to help prevent crimes such as mass shootings and rapes, but gun control supporters counter that throwing firearms onto campuses with young people, alcohol, mental health issues and strongly held beliefs on controversial topics is a dangerous mix,” the Sacramento Bee noted.

Both critics and supporters have attempted to determine how shooters and potential shooters would respond to knowledge of the new restrictions. Firearms Policy Coalition president Brandon Combs argued that the response would be opportunistic one. “Criminals will know that their intended victims are totally vulnerable when they’re on California school grounds because SB707 will ensure that they’re defenseless against a violent attack,” he said. But in most states with concealed carry, “an applicant must be at least 21 to obtain a concealed-carry license, which rules out most undergraduates at many universities,” The Washington Times observed.

The politics of opposition to the law have not always conformed to traditional expectations. In a critical analysis, the Firearms Policy Coalition noted that California’s law enforcement lobby responded to the introduction of SB707 “by offering their full support — in exchange for preservation of existing exemptions for law enforcement retirees. They later cut deals to add in even more special exemptions, including for retired police reservists. Combs believes that this is blatantly unconstitutional,” it added.

Concealed carry has taken on special significance at colleges and universities in part because schools independently maintain their own security staff — not always with great rigor. A recent report revealed that California’s Community College system, the nation’s largest system of higher education at 113 campuses, “does not require schools to have security or training plans that address active shooter scenarios,” according to Guns.com.

National reverberations

In the midst of the presidential campaign season, California’s approach to campus carry has become a touchstone for partisan debate. On the campaign trail, Republican candidates like former Florida Governor Jeb Bush have argued that the urge to enact new gun restrictions in the wake of mass shootings is the wrong response,” Bloomberg Politics noted. “Democrat Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, decried Bush’s response.”

By Katy Grimes

Retribution in politics isn’t unusual. Every year we witness members of the Legislature receiving punishment from party leadership, often followed by banishment to a tiny office and committee assignments taken away.

That’s the prerogative of party leadership.

However, Assemblywoman Norma Torres, D-Chino, has taken aim at a fellow member of the Assembly in a very public way. Torres authored AB 2182, which would require a police officer to arrest anyone for carrying a concealed handgun into an airport without a concealed weapons permit.

In the Assembly Monday, Torres said that last year there were 64 such gun incidents at airports, but only 34 of the offenders were taken to the police station; the other 30 were cited and released.

“African Americans and professional athletes are treated differently than business men and members of the Assembly,” Torres said.

As soon as Torres said this, the Assembly chambers ignited with chatter, laughs and stares at one member of the Assembly.

In Torres’ sights is Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, from Hesperia. In January, Donnelly was stopped by the TSA in the Ontario airport for having a loaded pistol in his carry-on luggage. Donnelly told authorities that he forgot that the weapon was in his briefcase. He was charged by police with a misdemeanor.

Torres tried to claim on Monday that this bill was not aimed at Donnelly, and that actually she and her staff have been working on this since last fall. However, the bill was introduced in February, on the last day to introduce legislation, and after Donnelly had his dust-up.

Legislative target

When the bill was first introduced, Torres had language written in that even tried to ban the perpetrator from using the same airport in which a gun incident takes place. But that language was amended out of the bill in April. If there is any doubt of Torres’ intentions, the now-removed amended language should make it clear: “The bill would ban a person who is subsequently found guilty from entering the airport, and would make it a misdemeanor to enter the airport where the offense occurred.”

“This bill is an insult to this institution, and to the citizens of California,” Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, retorted. “It’s an insult to everybody.”

AB 2182 “is a direct attack on a member of this Legislature,” Jones said. “This is just an opportunity to bloviate, and get more recognition for ourselves,” Jones added. “None of us are perfect.”

Assemblyman Don Wagner, R-Irvine, challenged Torres and asked her to specify the intent of her bill, asking, “Crime or negligence?”

Torres seemed flustered and instead read from the notes she had with her, explaining how the law currently defines a lawful, responsible gun owner. “This bill is about irresponsible gun owners,” Torres said.

Jones asked for Torres to answer the question, and Wagner accused her of filibustering.  “This bill is an embarrassment,” Wagner said.

And then, Assembly Majority Leader Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, called out a point of order, asking Wagner to allow Torres to answer the question.

This was a moment of hilarity as it was evident to everyone in the room except Calderon that Torres did not want to answer the question, but now was faced with coming up with an answer.

Torres read again from her notes, but Wagner wasn’t satisfied. “We all know what this is about,” he said.

Torres told the Assembly that the comments about her bill were insulting, and at this time claimed that she had been working on it since the fall.

The Donnelly incident

Donnelly was charged with carrying a loaded firearm in public without a concealed weapons permit and possessing a gun in an airport, misdemeanors, and punishable by up to 18 months in jail and $2,000 in fines.

Donnelly later said that the incident was an “unfortunate mistake,” and that he had forgotten that he had the gun in his briefcase after placing it there while working in his home garage.

Donnelly was sentenced to three years on probation and a $2,215 fine.

Bill analysis

The bill analysis done by the Public Safety Committee pointed out that, with all misdemeanors, offenders are cited and released unless already guilty of other charges, or “a likelihood the offense would continue, or safety of persona or property is endangered.”

But the other question raised by the committee staff was if there was a reason to treat this misdemeanor differently than most misdemeanors: “Is there a demonstrable need to delete law enforcement’s discretion to cite and release in the case of carrying a concealed weapon within an airport?”

“This is all a big waste of time,” said Jones after the hearing. “It’s an abuse of power, and a waste of time by the Legislative counsel, Assembly staff, and the time of three different committees.”

“What an embarrassment by the Legislature,” Jones said, “like a junior high cat fight.”

By Katy Grimes

By now everyone in America knows the name of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year old tragically killed on February 26 by a Florida neighborhood watch captain. While the details of the case are still suspicious at this point, and have even been altered in some reports, one fact remains: a young man is dead.

Instead of reporting on the facts as they came out, the media have become the story, and tragedy has been overshadowed by melodramatic story telling.

The media have doctored facts, ignored facts, covered up facts, altered photos and drawn incorrect conclusions to fit an agenda. It used to be that journalists were fired for knowingly distorting a story or altering facts and documents.

The death of Trayvon Martin is tragic enough without the elite mass media dog-piling all over one another, desperate for a piece of the action. In doing so, the media knowingly prevented the facts from getting in the way of sexy, morbid, delicious and damning headlines.

Politicians Join The Story

Never passing up a media opportunity to grab headlines by exploiting someone, politicians have now jumped on the bandwagon by donning hoodie sweatshirts on the floor of the U.S. Congress and in California’s state Capitol. In what was probably the biggest public relations blunder of the decade, they all looked like idiotic thugs — as does everyone else who wears a hoodie.

Let’s not forget that the purpose of wearing a hoodie is to cover the face and look like a tough guy. Is there any coincidence that nearly every bank robber, home invasion burgler and 7-11 robbery suspect wears a hoodie?

Race-Baiting Mob Mentality

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and other black leaders have inserted themselves into the fray, fueling a mob mentality and a dangerous rush to judgment.

In one more of his typical race-baiting statements, Jackson told media Trayvon Martin’s death shows how “blacks are under attack” and “targeting, arresting, convicting blacks and ultimately killing us is big business.”

Jackson could not have made a more despicable and irresponsible statement.

“We want George Zimmerman in court with handcuffs behind his back,” Sharpton told media.

In one of the most stupid moves yet, Actor/Director Spike Lee grossly exacerbated the media frenzy by tweeting Zimmerman’s home address — only Lee tweeted the wrong address, putting a retired couple at risk for their lives in his zeal by encouraging people to protest at the home. The couple had to vacate their own home after receiving threats from the crowds congregated outside their residence. Lee has since apologized to the elderly couple, and paid a settlement for their suffering as well as expenses incurred.

MSNBC political analyst and Democratic fundraiser Karen Finney blamed Republicans for Martin’s death and said, “[Republican politicians] reinforce and validate old stereotypes that associate the poor and welfare as criminal behavior with African-Americans and people of color, calling us lazy, undeserving recipients of public assistance. In the case of Trayvon, those festering stereotypes had lethal consequences.”

Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sabrina Fulton, has said that Zimmerman killed her son “because of the color of his skin.” Fulton has, however, applied for two patents for the phrases, “Justice for Trayvon” and “I am Trayvon.” The phrases are now being sold on hoodie sweatshirts.

The New Black Panther Party has issued a bounty poster and offered a $10,000 bounty for the “capture” of George Zimmerman. But Zimmerman is not on the run, nor has he been charged with anything yet. “Child killer of Trayvon Martin — Wanted Dead or Alive,” the poster reads.

This case is sounding more and more like the Duke Lacrosse team case, also tried and convicted in the media, and by vicious, lying public officials.

In the middle of an election cycle, apparently anything goes.

The Facts We Know

On February 26, 17-year old Trayvon Martin, a black male, was walking in a gated neighborhood in which he did not reside.

Martin was on suspension for 10 days from school. In the past several months, Martin was suspended from school three times, once for the possession of drug paraphernalia.

George Zimmerman, an Hispanic adult male, Neightborhood Watch captain for the neighborhood, saw Martin in the neighborhood, felt he was suspicious and called 9-1-1.

Zimmerman was carrying a licensed, loaded gun.

The Miami Herald reported that, in the gated community Zimmerman lived and voluntarily patrolled, there were eight burglaries, nine thefts and one shooting in the past year. Neighbors said Zimmerman was a dedicated Neighborhood Watch Captain, and had even prevented and solved some neighborhood crimes.

Zimmerman identified himself as an Hispanic, and was a registered Democrat.

Martin and Zimmerman had a verbal and physical altercation.

Police arrived and found Zimmerman bleeding on his face and from the back of his head, and  had grass stains on his back.

Martin was shot by Zimmerman and died at the scene.

President Barack Obama inserted himself into the story and said at a news conference that if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin.

The ‘Facts,’ As Reported By Mass Media

Here are the “facts,” as reported by the media:

A “racial conflict” in a Florida neighborhood resulted in the brutal killing of an innocent black teenager, by a white man.

Martin was a “good boy” and was on suspension only for five days for something “non-violent and minor.”

Zimmerman was identified first as a “white” male, then a “white Hispanic,” and an overzealous Neighborhood Watch captain.

Zimmerman was said to have aggressively pursued Martin, and initiated the altercation leading to the shooting.

Since the story broke, the media have been using a photo of Martin from five years ago, in which he looks like a sweet little kid.

Media outlets finally are using a current photo of 17-year old Martin, but lightened his skin and softened his features.

Don’t Let The Facts Get In The Way of A Good Story

A recently identified witness has reported seeing George Zimmerman on the ground with
Trayvon on top of him, punching him. The witness told police and the media that Zimmerman screamed and yelled for help. But the victim’s family says they also have a witness who said that Zimmerman was on top of Martin before he shot him.

The facts are still coming out, but not as fast as media reports calling for the prosecution of Zimmerman.

Former NAACP leader C.L. Bryant has accused Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton of “exploiting” the Trayvon Martin tragedy to “racially divide this country.”

Bryant said people like Jackson and Sharpton are being misleading in suggesting there is an epidemic of “white men killing black young men.”

“The epidemic is truly black on black crime,” Bryant told the Daily Caller. “The greatest danger to the lives of young black men are young black men.” Bryant said he wished civil rights leaders would focus their protests on those problems.

“Why not be angry about the wholesale murder that goes on in the streets of Newark and Chicago?” he asked. “Why isn’t somebody angry about that six-year-old girl who was killed on her steps last weekend in a cross fire when two gang members in Chicago start shooting at each other? Why is there no outrage about that?”

Bryant said he worries that “people like Sharpton and those on the left” will make Martin’s death a campaign issue in the presidential race; but it already has become a campaign issue, thanks to the media, which are now in the business of making the news.

California obviously is a divide state that ought to be divided in two — at least. That clearly is shown in the following map of how easy to get a concealed carry weapon’s permit in California. The map is from California Concealed Carry Weapon, a great group that promotes the right to carry a gun.

California is a “may issue” state, meaning each county sheriff determines who gets the permits. As you would expect, the counties on the Left Coast issue almost no permits. While the counties in the more sensible interior of the state make it easy to get a permit.

The anomaly is Orange County, which is conservative Republican, but has a gun-control fanatic as sheriff, Sandra Hutchens, whom foolish voters re-elected in 2010.

It’s typical that the Left Coast doesn’t understand that, as the title of gun scholar John Lott’s book put it, “More Guns, Less Crime.” (Now available for just $3.42 on Kindle.)

The reason is that, when honest, law-abiding citizens carry concealed guns, criminals don’t know which potential victim is armed, and which unarmed. So crime goes down.

Here’s the map. It’s obvious that the green, freedom-loving areas should be split off from the red, repressive, pro-criminal areas.

Jan. 3, 2012

But you know what? In Arizona, the whites who control the Legislature actually trust Latinos with concealed guns! The Latinos don’t even need a permit. Any Latino who’s 21 years or older and is not a  felon can buy a gun and carry it around in his pocket, coat, or car. That’s according to a new law just passed by Arizona’s white Legislature.

By contrast, in California Latinos mostly are banned from carrying concealed weapons — even if they’re totally honest citizens, and even if their lives are threatened and they need protection. Let’s say a young Latino mother is threatened by her screwball Anglo ex-boyfriend. It takes 11 days just to get a gun, then she can only keep it at home, not carry it with her for self-defense.

The only exceptions are those getting special permission from county sheriffs, commonly (although not always) for political favors.

Clearly, Arizona is much more Latino-friendly that California.