The California Department of Justice has confirmed what conservatives have been saying for decades about gun rights. Back in June of last year, the personal information of 192,000 California concealed carry applicants was leaked to the public. The California DOJ just concluded their investigation into the leak, and the results were exactly what you’d expect. In a press release, California Attorney General Rob Bonta assured citizens that he remains “deeply angered that this incident occurred and I extend my deepest apologies on behalf of the Department of Justice to those who were affected.” However, Bonta also claimed that the investigation “found no ill intent with the leak.” Bonta will have to pardon my skepticism, but I find that hard to believe.
Despite the alleged lack of ill intent, Bonta went on to say that “This failure requires immediate correction” and that he will oversee a number of changes in the DOJ based on a report yielded from the investigation. Among the changes listed at the bottom of the press release are to “review all DOJ policies and procedures,” “evaluate security risks,” “develop a data incident action plan,” and “review its approval process.” Those might all sound great, but take a look at the verbs there: review, evaluate, develop, and review. Their “action plan” after this review is to start a series of other reviews. No real changes are being made, just empty promises to talk about what ought to change.
You can talk all you want about the stereotype of gun people distrusting the government, but why should anyone trust the government employees who so perfectly fit the stereotype of absolute bureaucratic ineptitude? If this is how they treat sensitive information on government databases, then why would anyone want to be on a government database?
The government assures gun owners that, if they will just submit to a registry, then gun crime will disappear and their information will be kept totally secure. Instead, crime rates skyrocket and the DOJ releases a shopping list for criminals who want to find weapons to sell on the black market. Yes, the bureaucracy is still incompetent, and no, we should not trust them with centralized information about gun owners.
