LAKE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — Correctional officers working in Lake County are alleging that the Lake County Sheriff has violated a previous agreement, stopping them from carrying guns while on duty and outside the jail. Their current requirements stipulate they are not allowed to go armed into a correctional facility and they’re not allowed to be armed outside of transporting prisoners to and from the courthouse. This, correctional officers allege, places them at greater risk.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office apparently doesn’t even trust members of the law enforcement community to carry guns. That should really tell people how much faith in the Second Amendment this guy has got for the average citizen, let alone a sworn officer.
According to cases previously settled in court, the multiple legal fights have already tallied over an estimated one million dollars. That’s a million dollars flushed down the drain by the Sheriff’s Office and the county in fighting these types of cases.
via the Press Democrat
Sheriff Brian Martin issued a directive stating officers may carry service weapons only when they’re involved with transporting prisoners. They cannot carry their duty weapons when they merely stop by the office, fuel their vehicles or travel to and from work. The email, cited in the lawsuit, further noted that a concealed weapons permit does not authorize officers to carry weapons onto the jail grounds.
These correctional officers are in the line of work where they can be directly targeted by gangs, violent criminals, and family members of violent criminals.
By not allowing correctional officers to store a concealed carry handgun in their own vehicles — because that’s defined as jail grounds — the Sheriff is basically setting them up for ambush.
Think about it if you were a correctional officer working in Lake County. If you stored a handgun in your vehicle and drove to work, you would be violating the Sheriff’s mandate somewhere in the course of your work day.
The good news is if bad guys in prison don’t like their correctional officers, they can just mail a letter to the outside and let other bad guys know that there’s an open season on COs.
Who the heck wants to work in that environment?!
Now, we already know California issues permit by county and those counties can widely vary on the criteria needed to fulfill their issuing authority’s “just cause” clause. I’m not personally familiar with Lake County, California’s particular stance on concealed carry or how much more stringent their sheriff is in issuing permits.
The correctional officers allege they should be given preference in the issuing process.
Sheriff Martin’s own legal defense currently hinges on whatever the county is willing to provide. Both parties — the sheriff and the county itself — are both liable in these upcoming legal disputes.
Unless the judge sees the sheriff’s case in a favorable light, the county is set to lose even more money just because it won’t even take adequate care of its own employees.
This is what happens in an overly restrictive gun culture. Even those who are in an active line of work that places them in danger are needlessly placed at risk because the sheriff wants to be overly restrictive about where guns may and may not be carried.
Because we all know “gun free zones” work, right?
California still hasn’t gotten the picture.
As for the rest of us, be thankful you live in a state that’s just a bit more permissive in acknowledging a fundamental liberty granted to each and every citizen: the right to bear arms. Bear those arms every single day, everywhere you can. There’s law-abiding sworn officers of the law somewhere who can’t… (smh)