Santa Clara County sheriff draws legal fire for way she hands out concealed-gun permits [View all]
Tracy Seipel, San Jose Mercury News
When Tom Scocca applied to Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith three years ago for a permit to carry a concealed firearm, he thought he had all the right stuff.
Not only was he a former police officer and sheriff's deputy working as a security manager at a major Silicon Valley tech company, he owned an investigative firm and was already licensed to openly carry a loaded gun.
But the sheriff turned him down.
Now that denial is the basis of a federal lawsuit in which Scocca alleges that Smith issues concealed-weapons permits in an arbitrary and capricious way.
He may have a shot. A review by this newspaper of the list of people with such permits indicates that some who appear to have less reason than Scocca to carry a concealed weapon have had no problem getting a permit from Smith.
And although state law requires that permit holders must be "a resident of the county or a city" where the permits are issued -- or at least spend a substantial amount of time in a principal place of employment or business in that city or county -- the Sheriff's Office refused to explain how Smith defines who is a "resident."
In fact, some of those who currently hold permits don't appear to fit the ordinary definition of that word, including the scion of the Eggo frozen-waffle fortune who lives in Russia and the 86-year-old patriarch of Bechtel, the international engineering and construction firm. He lives in San Francisco.
full: http://www.mercurynews.com/rss/ci_19521214
also "A who's who of permit holders in Santa Clara County": http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_19521383?source=pkg
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