COMMITMENT • INTEGRITY • LEADERSHIP	View full PDF report View Selected Abbreviations
Concealed Carry Weapon Licenses Sheriffs Have Implemented Their Local Programs Inconsistently and Sometimes Inadequately Report Number: 2017-101

Introduction

Background

Generally, under California law, members of the public may not carry a concealed weapon in public unless they have been issued a license, commonly referred to as a concealed carry weapon (CCW) license. A CCW license enables individuals to carry a specific pistol, revolver, or other firearm that can be concealed upon their person. In California, state law allows—but does not require—a licensing authority, which can be either the sheriff of a county or the chief or other head of a municipal police department, to issue licenses. This discretion makes California a may-issue state. In contrast, a shall‑issue state is one in which issuing authorities are required to issue a permit to a qualified applicant. Licenses issued by any licensing authority in California are valid throughout the State unless a license-specific restriction provides otherwise.

Criteria for CCW Licensing

California law gives discretion to licensing authorities to issue licenses to applicants through a public licensing process upon proof of the following: the applicant is of good moral character, good cause exists for issuing the license, the applicant is a resident of that county or city within the county or the applicant's principal place of employment or business is in the county or city within the county, and the applicant has completed a training course on firearm safety and the law regarding the permissible use of a firearm. Beyond setting these licensing requirements, state law does not further define what constitutes good moral character or good cause for a license, and it defers to licensing authorities as to how applicants must demonstrate that they meet the residency requirement. Licensing authorities may also issue licenses to reserve law enforcement officers using different issuing criteria. Our audit focused on licenses issued through the public process.

Licensing authorities may not issue a CCW license to an applicant under certain circumstances. Specifically, if the applicant is a prohibited person—an individual prohibited by state or federal law from possessing, receiving, owning, or purchasing a firearm—a licensing authority may not issue that individual a CCW license. California also requires licensing authorities to submit an applicant's fingerprints to the California Department of Justice (Justice), and state law requires Justice to provide the licensing authority a report of all data and information pertaining to the applicant, including whether the applicant is a prohibited person. Also, if at any time during licensure the applicant becomes a prohibited person, state law requires Justice to notify the licensing authority of that fact, and the licensing authority must revoke the individual's license and notify Justice of the revocation.

State law regulates the maximum duration of a CCW license, and licensing authorities have the discretion to apply even shorter periods. Generally, a CCW license is valid for up to two years, but state law makes certain exceptions to this time frame. For example, licenses issued to judges can be valid for up to three years. Licensing agencies also have the authority and discretion to include any reasonable restrictions or conditions that the authority deems warranted, including restrictions as to the time, place, manner, and circumstances under which the licensee may carry the firearm. An individual can also choose to apply for a renewed license, at which point he or she must still meet the four key requirements for a CCW license.

CCW Funding and Fees

Applicants for a CCW license must pay a fee to Justice, which conducts a criminal background check. State law allows licensing authorities to charge a local processing fee for an initial license as well as a local processing fee for license renewal or license amendment. Licenses must be amended if, for example, the licensed individual changes his or her address, or when the individual wishes to designate a different firearm to carry concealed. In addition, state law provides that a licensing authority's initial application fee must not exceed the actual cost of processing the application. However, state law allows the initial, renewal, and amendment license fee limits, shown in Table 1, to be increased at a rate not to exceed any increase in the California Consumer Price Index (CCPI) provided that actual costs are not exceeded in the case of the initial license. Also, the licensing authority is allowed to collect up to 20 percent of its initial application fee at the time the individual applies for a license; it then collects the remaining amount when it issues the license. Finally, state law prohibits licensing authorities from imposing any additional fee or charge as a condition of processing an application for a CCW license.

Table 1
Maximum Local License Fees Permitted Under State Law Before CCPI Adjustment

	Maximum Unadjusted Fee
Upon initial license application*	$100
Upon application for license renewal	25
Upon amendment of a license	10

Scope and Methodology

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee (Audit Committee) directed the California State Auditor to review information related to the CCW licenses issued by licensing authorities in Sacramento, San Diego, and Los Angeles counties over the last three fiscal years. The licensing authorities within those counties that we reviewed were the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department (Sacramento), the San Diego County Sheriff's Department (San Diego), and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (Los Angeles) respectively. We reviewed the sheriffs' departments because they were the licensing authorities that would have jurisdiction over the largest number of people within the counties. Specifically, the Audit Committee directed us to identify the number of CCW licenses issued, modified, denied, and revoked by year as well as fiscal information about the CCW program across the three licensing authorities; whether those authorities were consistently following existing laws and enforcing department processes; and whether the statutory "good cause" requirement needs clarifying. To provide additional context, at each department we identified the number of active licenses. As of June 30, 2017, Sacramento had 9,130 active licenses and San Diego had 1,281 active licenses and as of January 1, 2017, county populations of about 1.5 million and 3.3 million, respectively.¹ As of August 18, 2017, our manual count of Los Angeles's hard-copy license files identified 197 active licenses and a county population of more than 10.2 million as of January 1, 2017.² Table 2 lists the objectives that the Audit Committee approved and the methods used to address those objectives.

Table 2
Audit Objectives and the Methods Used to Address Them

Audit Objective		Method
1	Review and evaluate the laws, rules, and regulations significant to the audit objectives.	Reviewed relevant laws, rules, regulations, and other background materials applicable to CCW programs.
2	Identify the number of new, renewed, and amended CCW licenses issued, the number of denied licenses, and the number of licenses revoked each year.	For fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17, attempted to determine the number of CCW licenses issued, renewed, denied, and revoked at the sheriffs' departments in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego. We were unable to determine the total number issued, renewed, denied, and revoked in Los Angeles for fiscal year 2014–15 because the department's record retention policy is to keep nonactive files for only two years. We were unable to determine the number of amended CCW licenses for Sacramento and San Diego because the information was not tracked reliably in those departments' databases. At Los Angeles, we identified a total of 21 amendments to licenses during our audit period. However, we found during our review of active license files that Los Angeles did not consistently file the amendment documents alongside the documentation for the licenses that were amended. Further, according to Los Angeles, after two years the department purges its records of inactive licenses. Accordingly, any amendments to those purged licenses were not available for our review. Therefore, we are not assured that our count of amendments is complete. Licenses can be amended if a licensee wants to change the firearm listed on a license or if the licensee's address changes. Amended licenses can also be issued if the licensing authority changes the restrictions applicable to a license. State law prohibits an amendment to a license from extending the period of time for which the license is valid. Therefore, although the information we present does not include a complete count of amended licenses, this situation does not affect this report's conclusions about the volume of licenses issued or renewed.
3	Determine whether the licensing authorities are consistently following existing laws and enforcing their processes for CCW licensing in their county, including the following:
	a. Issuing licenses in accordance with state law's requirements.	Reviewed available information from each of the departments that describes how each department applies the four key criteria from state law related to the issuance of CCW licenses: good moral character, good cause, county residency, and firearms training. Interviewed key staff to determine how each department processes CCW applications. At each department, reviewed a random selection of 25 issued licenses—15 initial licenses and 10 renewed licenses—and 15 denied licenses. We tested these files to determine whether the department processed each application according to its own policies and practices, as well as the requirements of state law. Interviewed relevant staff about any exceptions we identified in our testing.
	b. Collecting adequate evidence to demonstrate "good cause" and an individual's "good moral character."
	c. Enforcing the license program by revoking CCW licenses upon receiving notification that the license holder became ineligible.	Requested that Justice provide us with copies of all prohibited person notices that it sent to the three departments from fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. No notices were sent to Los Angeles during this period. For Sacramento, we selected 10 prohibited person notices. For San Diego, we selected all available notices from the audit period (four notices). We then determined whether the departments revoked licenses in response to the notices and whether they notified Justice of the revocations. We reviewed up to five additional revocations that did not have an associated prohibited person notice to determine whether Sacramento and San Diego had reported these local revocations to Justice. We found both departments reported all of the local revocations we reviewed. We did not review any revocations at Los Angeles because it did not revoke any licenses during our audit period.
4	Determine, to the extent possible, whether the factors licensing authorities consider before issuing a license should be expanded in state law. For example, determine whether there is a need to clarify the statutory "good cause" requirement.	Interviewed the sheriff or his designee to obtain perspective on whether the factors in state law for CCW license issuance should be changed.  Considered the results of our review of each of the three departments under objectives 2 and 3. Reviewed the licensing requirements of five other may-issue states—Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York—and compared those states' requirements to California's. Our review determined that other states also provide for discretion in the decisions made by licensing authorities. Specifically on the issue of good cause, we found that the other states we reviewed varied greatly in how much additional guidance they provide on what constitutes good cause for a CCW license.
5	Compare and contrast fiscal information about the CCW program across licensing authorities. At each licensing authority, determine the following:
	a. The licensing authority's budget and costs for processing CCW licenses and enforcing the license program.	Obtained financial reports from Sacramento to identify the amount the department budgeted and spent on its CCW program. Sacramento did not budget specifically for its CCW program in the first two years of our audit period. In the final year, the department budgeted for the program's one full-time staff member. As we describe in Chapter 2, the department operates its CCW program by using several part-time retired annuitants from its extra help pool. The department budgets separately for its extra help pool. We found that Los Angeles and San Diego did not budget for or track expenditures specifically for their CCW programs. We discuss this in Chapter 2.
	b. The amount of fees charged and collected.	Interviewed relevant staff and reviewed documentation such as receipts and fee schedules to determine the amount each department charged for initial and renewed CCW licenses.
	c. Whether the fees the licensing authority charges and collects comply with state law, including the degree to which licensing authority fees were increased and whether the licensing authority's fees increased at a rate that exceeded the CCPI.	Assessed the fee amounts identified under Objective 5(b) against the requirements in state law related to maximum fees. Determined the CCPI-adjusted maximums that state law would allow licensing authorities to charge for initial and renewed CCW licenses. Evaluated whether the departments' fees were higher than the CCPI-adjusted maximums from state law at any point from fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17.
	d. Whether the licensing process had an operating surplus or deficit and, if applicable, how the program was subsidized as well as any associated fiscal impact on county budgets.	At each of the departments, determined the total amount of revenue collected under the CCW program annually from fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. In Sacramento, because the department tracked both revenues and expenditures, we assessed whether expenditures were higher than revenues and then interviewed staff to determine what source of funding the department used to pay for any deficit in the CCW program. In Los Angeles and San Diego, because the departments did not track CCW program expenditures, we reviewed available information, such as fiscal reports, about the larger units within which the CCW program operated. In San Diego, we also reviewed a cost study conducted in fiscal year 2011–12 to determine whether a deficit likely existed in each department's CCW program. Reviewed public information about the size of each sheriff's department budget and each county's budget. For each of the entities we reviewed, we obtained expenditure reports both for the sheriff's department as a whole and for the county general fund. We interviewed staff at each county to assess the level of involvement each county has in setting budgets or other fiscal matters related specifically to the CCW program. We determined that none of the counties regularly review fiscal information about the CCW program.
6	Review and assess any other issues that are significant to the audit.	Reviewed available information for what six other licensing authorities in California charge for an initial CCW license processing fee and confirmed that information with those licensing authorities.

Sources: California State Auditor's analysis of Joint Legislative Audit Committee audit request number 2017-101, and information and documentation identified in the table column titled Method.

Assessment of Data Reliability

In performing this audit, we obtained electronic data files extracted from the information systems listed in Table 3. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, whose standards we are statutorily required to follow, requires us to assess the sufficiency and appropriateness of computer-processed information that we use to support findings, conclusions, or recommendations. Table 3 describes the analyses we conducted using data from these information systems, our methods for testing, and the results of our assessments. Although these determinations may affect the precision of the numbers we present, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our audit findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

Table 3
Methods Used to Assess Data Reliability

DATA SOURCE	PURPOSE	METHOD AND RESULT	CONCLUSION
Sacramento Weapons Permits and Licenses database Permitium database	To determine the number of new, renewed, amended, denied, and revoked CCW licenses from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2017.	We performed data-set verification procedures and electronic testing of key data elements and we did not identify any significant issues. However, we identified limitations in the Weapons Permits and Licenses database—the database primarily used to track CCW licenses in all but six months of the audit period. Specifically, this database did not track CCW license amendment dates and only contained the most recent date for a recurring action. Because of these data limitations, we could not determine the number of amended CCW licenses. Further, the number of new, renewed, denied, and revoked CCW licenses were limited to the most recent actions not overwritten in the Weapons Permits and Licenses database.	Not sufficiently reliable for this audit purpose. Although this determination may affect the precision of the numbers we present, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
	To make a selection of CCW license actions from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2017.		Because we were limited to the most recent actions not overwritten in the database, the data are not complete for this audit purpose. However, the department's procedures for processing applications did not change significantly throughout most of our audit period. Therefore, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
San Diego License Application Processing and Tracking database	To determine the number of new, renewed, amended, denied, revoked, and suspended CCW licenses from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2017.	We performed data-set verification procedures and electronic testing of key data elements and did not identify any significant issues. However, we identified limitations in the License Application Processing and Tracking database. Specifically, this database did not track CCW license amendment dates and is not designed to consistently track and identify all license revocations and suspensions. Additionally, the database contained only the most recent date for a recurring action. Because of these data limitations, we could not determine the number of amended CCW licenses. Further, the number of new, renewed, denied, revoked, and suspended CCW licenses were limited to the most recent actions not overwritten in the License Application Processing and Tracking database.	Not sufficiently reliable for this audit purpose. Although this determination may affect the precision of the numbers we present, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
	To make a selection of CCW license actions from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2017.		Because we were limited to the most recent actions not overwritten in the database, the data are not complete for this audit purpose. However, the department's procedures for processing applications did not change significantly during our audit period. Therefore, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
Sacramento Financial reports run from Sacramento County's Comprehensive Online Management Personnel and Accounting Systems for Sacramento County (COMPASS).	To determine the revenues and expenditures for the CCW program for fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. To determine departmentwide expenditures and budgets for fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. To determine Sacramento County's expenditures for fiscal year 2016–17.	We did not perform full data reliability testing. However, to gain some assurance of the reliability of the data related specifically to the CCW program, we observed Sacramento's staff running the expenditure and revenue reports to ensure that the staff entered the appropriate date range and account numbers. We did not perform additional procedures specific to data reliability because the expenditure records for Sacramento's CCW program were primarily paperless and the revenue records were kept among the revenue records for the entire county, which made identifying CCW-revenue records cost prohibitive.	Undetermined reliability for these audit purposes. Although this determination may affect the precision of the numbers we present, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
San Diego Financial reports run from San Diego County's Oracle E-Business Suite financial system.	To determine revenues for the CCW program for each fiscal year 2014–15 through fiscal year 2016–17. To determine licensing unit expenditures and revenues for fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. To determine departmentwide expenditures and budgets for fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. To determine San Diego County's expenditures for fiscal year 2016–17.	We did not perform full data reliability testing. However, to gain some assurance of the reliability of the data related specifically to the CCW program, we observed San Diego staff running the reports to ensure that the staff member entered the appropriate date range and account numbers. We then haphazardly selected CCW revenue receipts and requested the supporting documentation to ensure that the reports we obtained included a record of the revenues that were included in those receipts. Although we planned to review 29 receipts, we found the system did not reflect the revenues collected for two of the receipts we selected and then stopped testing.	Not sufficiently reliable for the purpose of determining the CCW program revenue. Undetermined reliability for the remaining purposes. Although these determinations may affect the precision of the numbers we present, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
Los Angeles Financial reports run from Los Angeles County's eCAPs financial system.	To determine revenues for the CCW program for each fiscal year 2014–15 through fiscal year 2016–17. To determine Office of the Undersheriff expenditures and revenues for fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. To determine departmentwide expenditures and budgets for fiscal years 2014–15 through 2016–17. To determine Los Angeles County's expenditures for fiscal year 2016–17.	We did not perform full data reliability testing. However, to gain some assurance of the reliability of the data related specifically to the CCW program, we observed Los Angeles staff run financial reports to ensure that the staff member entered the appropriate date range and account numbers. We haphazardly selected 29 CCW revenue receipts from the available license files, which, because of the department's record retention policy, did not include all files from fiscal year 2014–15. Although the department kept additional CCW receipts from fiscal year 2014–15, it did so among its total receipts for that year, which made identifying items from that year cost prohibitive. We found that the receipts we selected were all included on supporting documents that we traced back to the revenue report we received.	Undetermined reliability for these audit purposes. Although this determination may affect the precision of the numbers we present, there is sufficient evidence in total to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

Source: California State Auditor's analysis of various documents, interviews, or data from the entities listed in this table.

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Footnotes

¹ The number of active licenses is based on unaudited data obtained from Sacramento and San Diego. Go back to text

² We conducted a manual count of Los Angeles's CCW license files because, although Los Angeles has a tracking spreadsheet for active CCW licenses, the Audit Committee directed us to identify information that its tracking spreadsheet did not include, such as the number of licenses Los Angeles renewed and issued during our audit period. Go back to text

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