While visiting Ontario, Canada some years ago, I was visiting with a colleague who was surprisingly, considering it was in Canada, a bit of a gun enthusiast. He had several long guns and a .44 magnum handgun.

A discussion ensued about gun laws in Canada and I found myself rather shocked at how arbitrary it all was. My friends "right" to acquire, own and use his weapons was entirely at the discretion of the local constabulary. Depending on what county or region you lived in, the police were variously liberal, stingy or obdurate in their "bequests" of firearms acquisition certificates. The police did not have to furnish any reason for deny an FAC, Canadians had to produce a convincing reason why they should have one.

Control is the hallmark of socialism--when you ask the government to take care of you like a child, you can expect to be treated like one.

Before you consider plucking the mote out of your Canadian neighbors eye, better consider first the state of gun control in our own socialist paradise.

California is one of a small number of states that still has a discretionary concealed handgun carry statute that grants nearly unlimited discretion to a sheriff or police chief whether to issue a permit or not. When this law that when first passed in 1923, it was part of a bill that was explicitly stated by supporters as part of a strategy to disarm Hispanics and Chinese:

it will have a salutary effect in checking tong wars among the Chinese and vendettas among our people who are of Latin descent.

This is not really a surprise; racism is one of the three pillars of American gun control law.

There have been problems for my entire adult life with California sheriffs issuing permits to political supporters and big campaign contributors, as my friend Jim March has documented in detail here.

The corruption is ongoing--not just history. Los Angeles County Sheriff Baca has pulled some pretty sleazy stuff in this area, as this June 15, 2007 MSNBC report discusses:

It is not the first time that Tinseltown's sheriff has been criticized for being too cozy with the Hollywood crowd. Baca plays golf with actor Michael Douglas, and has received campaign contributions or endorsements from the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Les Moonves, Sylvester Stallone, Dustin Hoffman and Steven Segal. The sheriff has issued concealed-weapon permits to such actors as Ben Affleck, and in 1999, less than a year after being sworn in, he set up an “executive reserves” unit that allowed celebrities to wear a badge and carry a gun. All they had to do was take 64 hours of training and pass the department’s background check.

Critics of the program, who said it was nothing more than a sly way for Baca to pay back friends and supporters, were incensed when, less than a month after the unit was initiated, one of those reservists—Scott Zacky of the Zacky Farms chicken dynasty—was stripped of his badge for drawing a gun outside his Bel Air mansion after mistaking a couple on a date for car thieves. The unit was suspended in late 1999 after one member, a wealthy Baca supporter who owns a jewelry store, was arrested for money laundering.

Read the whole thing...