CGF Asks Calif. Legislature to End Unconstitutional APPS-based Arrests, Raids, & Firearm Confiscations
OutdoorHub 02.11.14
The Calguns Foundation sent an urgent letter to Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Speaker of the Assembly John A. Pérez formally requesting that the Legislature move to end unconstitutional arrests, raids, searches, and property seizures under the Department of Justice’s “Armed & Prohibited Persons System” (APPS) disarmament program.
In the letter, Executive Director Brandon Combs said that “the Attorney General’s improper enforcement of the DOJ’s [APPS system] has created a circumstance under which some individual gun owners who are eligible under state and federal law to possess and acquire firearms are targeted by forceful disarmament activities that the Legislature intended to be directed at prohibited persons (such as violent convicted criminals and the adjudicated mentally ill).”
The letter goes on to say that “[i]nstead of taking appropriate measures to confirm a bona fide prohibiting condition in a person’s criminal and mental health history, such as acquiring dispositive court records, DOJ and other law enforcement agencies appear to be relying exclusively on the APPS database – a system that the Department knows quite well to be terminally ineffective.”
The Calguns Foundation believes that the Legislature must act decisively to hold DOJ accountable and ensure that law-abiding Californians need not fear their government.
A copy of the letter can be viewed and downloaded at http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/cgf_steinberg-perez-APPS-2014-2-10.pdf.
