Licenses to carry in California, while still rare, have been increasing. As these licenses are valid statewide, this increases the likelihood that the licensee will come into contact with law enforcement. As such, the license should be recognizable as valid to the law enforcement officer.

Currently, these licenses are required to be uniform throughout the state. An officer who encounters a permit from El Dorado County should be seeing the exact same permit as from Riverside County--and it should be readily identifiable as such.

However, it appears that some local authorities have been issuing their own local versions contrary to statute, putting their staff and all concealed carry holders in harm's way.

Unfortunately, AB 2510, authored by Eric Linder (R-Corona), only makes the problem worse.

Given that there are nearly 500 issuing authorities, if all of them were to make up their own permit, it would put concealed carry license holders and law enforcement in danger, not only in California--but in those states that honor our licenses as well.

AB 2510 seeks to retroactively validate those unlawful and dangerous local permits by requiring the Department of Justice (DOJ) to ratify them, as well as encourage up to 500 new and distinct permits.

Although we have raised our concerns with the author, he needs to hear it from gun owners and law enforcement officers who will have to deal with the consequences of the bill.

The solution is simple; if the state wishes to update and modernize the licenses (photo, security features, size, material, color, etc...) then it should construct a uniform, statewide policy and not force DOJ to just ratify whatever the local issuing authority prints or produces.

We, and just about every gun owner in California, want a uniform system for concealed carry permits.

Unfortunately, AB 2510 moves us in the wrong direction. But with some simple amendments the bill can do a lot of good.