Tag: california

Woke California AG Tells Gun-Permitting Officials to Deny Applicants Based on Politics

After the Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment ruling in June, California’s attorney general encouraged law enforcement officials in the state to deny firearm carry permits to individuals with a history of “hatred and racism”—whether expressed in social media posts or elsewhere.

The problem is that in these politically polarized times, defining hatred and racism is problematic, leading to definitions that disfavor the beliefs of conservatives and others who don’t toe the “woke” or politically correct line, critics say. Allowing these concepts to be used in the gun-permitting process is a recipe for abuse and could lead to violations of gun-permit applicants’ Second and First Amendment rights, they say.

On June 23, the Supreme Court ruled in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, that New York state’s tough concealed carry gun permitting system was unconstitutional because it only granted public-carry licenses “when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense.”

The day after the Bruen ruling, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, sent a “legal alert” (pdf) to law enforcement officials, advising them that the state was dropping the requirement for gun license applicants to provide a “good cause” because the requirement is now “unconstitutional and unenforceable.”

But “the requirement that a public-carry license applicant provide proof of ‘good moral character’ remains constitutional” and should continue to be enforced.

A “good moral character” investigation “requires an independent determination,” Bonta wrote.

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California law may backfire terribly as 70,000 independent truckers could be forced out of work, unleashing ‘devastating’ supply chain misery

A California law threatens to unleash more supply chain misery and inflation on residents of the Golden State by forcing independent truckers out of the workforce.

California Assembly Bill 5 was introduced by former state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat, and signed into law in September 2019 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

AB5 called for “a person providing labor or services for remuneration shall be considered an employee rather than an independent contractor unless the hiring entity demonstrates that the person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, the person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and the person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business.”

Certain professions were exempt from AB5, including insurance agents, health care professionals, investment advisers, realtors, barbers, and fishermen. However, truckers were not exempt from AB5.

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University Of California Waives Tuition For Native Americans, Starting Fall 2022

Announced in April, the UC Native American Opportunity Plan allows California residents who are “members of federally recognized Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native tribes” to get free education on UC campuses. The program applies to undergraduate and graduate students.

“The University of California is committed to recognizing and acknowledging historical wrongs endured by Native Americans,” UC President Michael Drake said in a letter (pdf).

“I am proud of the efforts the University of California has made to support the Native American community, including the creation of the [program].”

The UC system has ten campuses—Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. About 295,000 students were enrolled in the system in fall 2021.

The program is expected to cost $2.4 million and will be funded mainly by both the state’s and UC’s financial aid programs, according to Drake’s office.

The program was developed to expand “student diversity and make the University of California more affordable and accessible,” Drake said in the letter. The approximate annual tuition for a state resident is $13,104, according to the UC Admissions office.

California has 109 federally recognized tribes and has more Native Americans and those of Alaska Native heritage than any other state in the country, according to the Judicial Council of California.

Native Americans make up 1.7 percent of the state’s population while accounting for 0.5 percent of the UC system’s student body in Fall 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the university’s enrollment statistics.

Some universities and lawmakers across the country are following UC’s steps.

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California presses ahead with restricting doctors’ speech from going against “contemporary scientific consensus”

The California Senate Business, Professions, and Economic Development Committee approved bill AB 2098, which would punish doctors for disagreeing with the state’s chosen authority and spreading COVID “misinformation.”

According to the author of the bill, Democrat Assemblyman Evan Low, the controversial bill “helps ensure we tackle misinformation and disinformation” spread by doctors about COVID.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bill was drafted after doctors sharing their opinions about Covid on social media was seen to be undermining public messaging.

The bill argues that misinformation by medical practitioners is negligent:

“‘Misinformation’ means false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus to an extent where its dissemination constitutes gross negligence by the licensee.”

An analysis of the bill by the committee concluded that it:

“Makes disseminating misinformation, as defined, or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, by a physician and surgeon unprofessional conduct.”

During the hearing of the bill by the committee earlier this week, it was heavily opposed, particularly on First Amendment grounds and the idea that doctors should be allowed to go against “scientific consensus,” as that’s how major discoveries of the past have come to be.

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Names, addresses of every concealed carry permit holder in California exposed

The names, addresses, and license types of every Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) permit holder in California were exposed as part of a data breach suffered by the state Department of Justice, according to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.

Officials say the California State Sheriff’s Association informed the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office about the data breach, which followed the publication of the state’s 2022 Firearms Dashboard Portal on Monday, KTLA sister station KSEE/KPGE reports. At the time, state officials described it as improving “transparency and information sharing for firearms-related data.”

Sheriff’s Office officials say the information released included the CCW holders’ name, age, address, Criminal Identification Index (CII) number and license type (Standard, Judicial, Reserve and Custodial). The information included every CCW holder in the state.

In response to the information being released, Fresno County officials say the state disabled access to the website hosting the data – but there are concerns that the information was copied and remains in circulation on social media and other parts of the internet. It is unknown how long the information was publicly accessible on the Department of Justice’s website.

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California bill 2273 would require websites and apps to verify visitors’ ID

California’s bill CA AB 2273, designed to enact the Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) is just one among the bills raising concerns in terms of how they might negatively affect the web going forward.

Like their counterparts in the EU, legislators in California, according to their critics, present online child safety as their only goal – and a stated desire to improve this is hard to argue with, even when arguments are valid – such as that the proposed bills may in fact do nothing to better protect children, while eroding the rights of every internet user.

Among other things, AB 2273 aims to require sites and apps to authenticate the age of all their users before allowing access. Attempts to introduce mandatory age authentication have also cropped up in other jurisdictions before, but have proven controversial, technically difficult to implement, with a high potential to compromise user data collected in this way, and intrusive to people’s privacy.

In California, the situation doesn’t look much different as critics of this bill say that authentication will require site operators and businesses to deal with personal data collection from every user, and worry about using and storing it securely.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

In addition, some kind of government-issued ID – or surrendering biometric data such as that collected through facial recognition – is necessary to prove one’s age in the first place; and this is where forcing sites and services to require this information would effectively mean the end of anonymity online.

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California working on denying gun permits based on “ideological viewpoints”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen on Thursday didn’t simply shoot down New York’s onerous “good-cause requirement” in the gun permit application process. It set up similar laws in other states for likely revocation. One of those states is California, where they have their own requirement that applicants must show a “good cause” or “special need” before a carry permit is issued. State Attorney General Rob Bonta sent out a letter on Friday to law enforcement and government attorneys noting the change and saying that the state’s current “may issue” regime should be able to be converted to a “shall issue” regime with few modifications. So that’s good news, right?

Not so fast. As Eugene Volokh points out at Reason, Bonta pivoted from signaling compliance with the new SCOTUS ruling to identifying another way to deny permits to people with no criminal record. He claims that the ruling will not impact the existing requirement for applicants to be able to demonstrate that they are “of good moral character.” On that basis, the state can start snooping around to see if you hold any unauthorized opinions or are prone to demonstrate “hatred and racism.” And how would they know that? Well, by going through your social media accounts, of course.

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350,000 trout to be euthanized after bacteria outbreak at two Eastern Sierra fish hatcheries

Two fish hatcheries in the Eastern Sierra are fighting a bacteria outbreak that is causing them to euthanize nearly 350,000 trout.

On Monday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced that nearly 350,000 catchable rainbow trout need to be euthanized as they are showing signs of Lactococcus petuari, a bacteria that sickens fish.

CDFW said this outbreak was first detected in April at the Black Rock Hatchery in Independence and Fish Springs Hatchery in Big Pine. According to CDFW, these two hatcheries usually provide fish for stocking waterways in the Inland Deserts Region.

‘Because this is a significant loss of fish that would normally be stocked for anglers in the 2022 season, CDFW is working to contract with an external vendor to provide catchable rainbow trout for planting in Mono County,” CDFW wrote in a statement.

CDFW said this contract could be approved by as early as July, allowing for stocking to begin shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, other CDFW hatcheries across California have stepped in to support the eastern Sierra hatcheries by providing and stocking fish in priority waters.

“This loss is a huge disappointment, but we were prepared for this possibility and are doing all we can to ensure to continued angling opportunity for the public,” CDFW Fisheries Supervisor Russell Black said.

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California animal shelter to require those adopting pets to support gun restrictions

An animal shelter in California will not allow anyone who does not support gun control to adopt their pets.

The Shelter Hope Pet Shop in Thousand Oaks, Calif., announced at the end of May that it had added the question, “Where do you stand on gun control?” to its standard adoption interview for potential pet owners.

“We believe that if we can make our voices heard on how we feel we can make an impact. We do not support those who believe that the 2nd amendment gives them the right to buy assault weapons,” Shelter Hope Pet Shop owner Kim Sill wrote on the organization’s website. “If your beliefs are not in line with ours, we will not adopt a pet to you.”

The shelter also requires owners to be at least 25, have a current driver’s license and submit to a physical inspection by the shelter if they don’t own their home.

Sill referenced the deadly mass shooting at a Thousand Oaks bar in 2018, writing that the shooter who carried out that attack had volunteered at Shelter Hope Pet Shop. Sill added that she had been told by officials that the gunman had considered targeting the shelter as a potential location to carry out the shooting.

“If you lie about being a [National Rifle Association] supporter, make no mistake, we will sue you for fraud,” Sill wrote.

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