A boom for concealed carry classes across California, but long waits for permits
Business has been booming for Ziyad “Zip” Showket, a firearms instructor in liberal Marin County — thanks to six justices on the nation’s highest court.
For two decades across four Bay Area counties, Showket has been schooling retired law enforcement officers, mall cops and the rare civilian allowed under local ordinances to carry a concealed handgun. The courses include live fire training; deep discussions about the legal, ethical and psychological consequences of taking a life in self-defense; and practical concerns, such as what to do if you have to pee while armed. (Answer: Skip the urinal and “wait for a stall.”)
Up until last year, a typical class, held every other week, would bring in four or five students — eight, at most. Residents of Marin County, historically one of the toughest places in the state to get a permit, were especially rare. The most from Marin he can recall in a single class: two. “And that was, like, bizarre.”
But this was all before June 23, 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York state law that gave officials sweeping discretion over who gets the right to carry a concealed firearm in public.
The ruling also wiped out California’s very similar statute, along with those in half a dozen other deep blue states. Practically overnight, county sheriffs and municipal police chiefs — the officials ultimately responsible for issuing permits — were required to begin handing them out to anyone who met basic legal requirements.
Those requirements vary slightly by county. But every California applicant must be at least 18 years old, own a registered firearm, pass a criminal background check and complete a safety course run by a certified instructor.
Someone like Showket. Thus, his suddenly very busy schedule.
Since last summer, class sizes have swelled, forcing Showket to hire additional staff. He’s doubled his course offerings. Even so, the rest of this month is booked, along with half of April, he said.
The student body has also transformed. Classrooms once dominated by trained security professionals are now filled with engineers, salespeople, electricians and other civilians. Once, there was a chaplain, and Showket alludes coyly to the occasional celebrity. Among the most notable changes: More residents from Marin County.
“In our last class of twelve, every single person was from Marin,” he said.
The floodgates open
Last year’s court decision marked the most significant undercutting of California’s strictest-in-the-nation set of gun laws in at least a generation. For gun rights advocates, the ruling has been a long-awaited reprieve.
But for many Democratic state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom, it has been cause for outrage, alarm and calls to action. They failed to pass a bill last year to limit places where concealed guns can be carried. They’re working on a new version this session, though it wouldn’t take effect until Jan. 1 at the earliest. Senate Bill 2 is set for its first committee hearing on March 28.
Amidst the legal sea change, the tide hasn’t shifted evenly across the state.
In conservative-learning counties, sheriffs were disinclined to subject concealed carry applicants to added restrictions even before 2022. In the national divide between “may issue” states, where permits were issued by discretion, and “shall issue” states, where they were issued by right, gun owners in Shasta, El Dorado and Fresno counties and other parts of rural California effectively resided in the latter.
It was in coastal, Democratic-leaning bigger cities where the right to concealed carry was rarely allowed. According to data released by the state Department of Justice last year, between 2012 and 2021, San Francisco issued a total of 11 permits to civilians. Marin was more permissive, but only slightly so, with 138 permits issued.
That’s all but certain to change.
From 2019 to 2021, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office received between 9 to 16 applications each year, according to office spokesperson Sgt. Brenton Schneider. Since the Supreme Court decision, the office has received 65. That’s probably an undercount: Inundated with applications in the late summer of 2022, the sheriff’s office stopped serving the entire county, referring municipal residents to their local police departments.
Before last June, people “knew better than to put an application in Marin,” said Showket. Nowadays, he said he opens up most classes by asking: “Who’s been waiting their whole life to do this?”
“Everybody raises their hand,” he said.
A very long wait
One hundred miles to the south, in the Bay Area suburb of Morgan Hill, John Lissandrello said he’d never truly considered applying for a permit to carry around his 9mm pistol until the court decision.
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