[THE Gimper]

I just sent this email to Steve Greenhut at the OC Register.

Alarming Ramifications of Sheriff Hutchens' Actions

Dear Mr. Greenhut,

As you know, Sheriff Hutchens originally planned to revoke over 400 CCW permits from law-abiding citizens who have not broken any law, or in any way violated the terms of their permits. Because of the public outcry over the potential for actual harm being done to those citizens by having a black mark put on their records, the Sheriff has announced a plan to "expire early" the permits of anyone who voluntarily surrenders theirs in order to avoid the black mark of a revocation on their records. To that end, it has been learned that she has been aided by the collusion of officials at the California DOJ, who are going to alter their database in order to allow her to take this action.

As a fellow libertarian, I'm sure you can appreciate that the consequences of these actions are disturbing, to say the least -- and not just for CCW. This fundamentally changes everything about the way citizens of this state relate to their government. If the Sheriff is allowed to arbitrarily change the expiration date of CCW licenses which have already been issued (and for which the holders of those permits paid all of the required fees) who's to say that other government officials can't, and won't arbitrarily change the expiration date of other licenses whenever they feel like it? Imagine receiving a letter like this someday soon,

"Dear Mr. Greenhut,

This letter is to inform you that you business license which was due to expire 12/31/09, will now expire tomorrow. You must immediately cease all operations. You are welcome to reapply and submit the appropriate fees to have your license renewed for a period as yet undetermined.

Sincerely,

Your government"

As Supervisor Norby pointed out in his recent guest editorial, this is at the level of contract law, and is fundamental to the way we govern ourselves, and the way in which our society works. If a citizen cannot count on the terms of a contract being honored by his government, we are now being governed by the whim of those in power. That is dictatorship, not democracy.

I urge you to continue to sound the alarm on this matter.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXXXXXX