When discussing personal safety, two factors arise… your Second Amendment rights and the local policies that either support your rights to defend yourself and your loved ones with a legal and registered firearm… or strip you of them. Yes my friends, we’re talking about the long-embattled CCW (Carry Concealed Weapon) debate.

There are two primary CCW policies: “Good-Cause” and Shall-Issue” … these titles are a bit deceiving so let me explain their common definitions.

Good-Cause means that you may be awarded a CCW by your local Sheriff or Police Chief if your reason is a valid one in their eyes via some special circumstance, such as an active threat upon your life or a special kind of employment where you may be carrying money or valuables within the public space—no CCW will be granted without a special circumstance that they deem valid. 

Basically…Your Constitutional Right to carry a firearm on your person for Personal Defense is not a good enough reason to issue a CCW under the Good-Cause policy.

Conversely, Shall-Issue CCW Policy respects the Citizen’s Constitutional Right to protect themselves and their loved ones via a legally-owned and registered concealed firearm without the need to have a “special circumstance” or a hazardous vocation… and folks that is where I stand on this issue—As your Sheriff I’ll end Alex Villanueva’s restrictive Good-Cause CCW policy,  replacing it with a Shall-Issue CCW program that respects the people’s Constitutional right to protect themselves with a firearm. 

Now to be very clear… I’ll have a reasonable yet thorough application and background criteria to ensure that the CCWs I issue are being issued to the sane, responsible, law-abiding citizens of LA County.  Again, safety is the number one goal.