In January of 2019, I decided to document my experience attempting to apply for a concealed weapons carry license (CCW) in Santa Clara County, California.

The reason I decided to document this process is that the way in which these permits are issued differ greatly from county to county and it is ultimately the choice of the Sheriff to dictate the policy. This map shows that Santa Clara county is one of the few counties listed as “virtually no issue”. No issue means that CCW permits are issued very infrequently and are highly subject to the scrutiny of the sheriff. The problem, as you’ll learn while reading this post, is that the Santa Clara County Sheriff appears to care less about the actual qualifications and justification for wanting a permit and more about the net worth of the applicant. Scocca vs. Smith is a good read on this exact type of discrimination.

It’s well known among firearm enthusiasts that applying for a CCW permit in Santa Clara is an exercise in futility. You’ll often see comments on message boards along the lines of “unless you’re a campaign donor for the Sheriff, don’t even bother”. This line of thinking is not entirely unfounded. The Mercury News published an article in 2011 investigating the connections between campaign donors and individuals who received CCW permits: https://www.mercurynews.com/2011/12/10/santa-clara-county-sheriff-draws-legal-fire-for-way-she-hands-out-concealed-gun-permits/

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office website informs visitors that they are currently working through a large backlog of applications. By means of a California Public Records Request I discovered this statement to be false or at least unfounded. In fact, the sheriff’s office is unable to provide any sort of statistics around how many applications they receive and process each year. I cover the details returned from the records in depth later in this post.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that CA penal code 26205 states that:

“The licensing authority shall give written notice to the applicant indicating if the license under this article is approved or denied. The licensing authority shall give this notice within 90 days of the initial application for a new license or a license renewal, or 30 days after receipt of the applicant’s criminal background check from the Department of Justice, whichever is later. If the license is denied, the notice shall state which requirement was not satisfied.”

It took me 195 days to receive a judgement on my application.

Legal Requirements and Qualifications

The legal requirements to obtain and apply for a CCW permit in Santa Clara County are defined in CA Penal Code 26150:

(a) When a person applies for a license to carry a pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person, the sheriff of a county may issue a license to that person upon proof of all of the following:

(1) The applicant is of good moral character.

(2) Good cause exists for issuance of the license.

(3) The applicant is a resident of the county or a city within the county, or the applicant’s principal place of employment or business is in the county or a city within the county and the applicant spends a substantial period of time in that place of employment or business.

(4) The applicant has completed a course of training as described in Section 26165.

“Good cause” is relative, judged on a case by case basis, and is entirely at the discretion of the Santa Clara County Sheriff. This judgement of good cause is what allows the sheriff to deny permits to so many applicants — by telling them their justification doesn’t meet “good cause”. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against California sheriffs with the claim that applicants are being unfairly discriminated against. To my knowledge, none of these lawsuits have been successful.

My Qualifications