If the following series of events was a coincidence, it was an amazing coincidence:
On June 23, the Supreme Court decided the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The Bruen decision upheld the public carry of firearms as a constitutionally protected right—an historic win for Americans concerned about their self-defense in public. Bruen was the biggest Second Amendment victory in over a decade, though it came amid flaring controversy over both gun rights and the Supreme Court.
And then . . .
On June 27, the Monday following the Bruen decision, an official California state website revealed the names, addresses, and other identifying details of every concealed carry permit holder in California. For a period of several hours, stretching into the following day, the public could access and download the personal information of over 240,000 concealed carriers and permit applicants.
Quite a coincidence.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who himself has been a defendant in several actions related to the Second Amendment, says that the release of gun owners’ personal information by the California Department of Justice was “unauthorized” and “unacceptable.”
We should note, however, that the words “unauthorized” and “unacceptable” don’t rule out one very reasonable explanation—a rogue public employee may have intentionally revealed concealed carriers’ personal information as an act of intimidation and so-called political resistance. The timing is consistent with the possibility that the leak was in retaliation for the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which dealt precisely with public carry permits.
Fertile Ground for Doxing
First, recall that California is among the most anti-gun jurisdictions in the nation, and this sentiment is probably stronger among state bureaucrats who have chosen to work for a government that takes this stance. Moreover, the privacy breach is so extreme—involving huge amounts of the most sensitive information—that it is hard to see how it could happen by accident or by someone not realizing it was a problem.
Second, if this was truly an accident, one also wonders how the information stayed online for such a long time. According to the California Department of Justice, the personal data was accessible for almost a full day.
In the vast realms of the California government, is no one responsible for guarding against such a meltdown of privacy security? Or even noticing quickly, when such a disaster occurs?
Government offices make mistakes, but do they just forget to anonymize a public database of every concealed carrier? Or not realize they need to?
These would be reasonable questions under any circumstances. But we are living in extraordinary times.
More Than Sore Losers
As the run-up to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson abortion decision made clear, both leaking and “doxing” have reached new extremes in America.
In May, a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked, leading to threats of violence, illegal protests outside some justices’ homes, and even an assassination attempt after their addresses were maliciously publicized.
At the same time, we’ve also witnessed spiking levels of outrage among anti-gun activists—with calls to have the NRA convention shut down as “a center of insurrection and domestic terrorism” after the Uvalde mass shooting, or to “dissolve the Supreme Court of the United States” after the Bruen decision. Anti-gun anger even seems to have been a motive for the man who traveled to kill Justice Kavanaugh.
We’ve seen the issue of guns reach a flashpoint, just as we’ve seen leaking and privacy violations taken to new heights (or depths) as a form of political warfare. All in the same brief period, from early May to late June.
California’s data breach may have been a continuation of all these disturbing trends by a state employee enraged after the Bruen decision.
Government Incompetence
Even if California’s release of personal information was a complete accident, however, it still raises serious questions about gun owners’ privacy and safety in states that require a permit for public carry. An accidental disclosure of this data is, ultimately, just as disturbing as a deliberate leak.
In either case, the leak shows the folly of the gun control ideology.
That ideology rests on the idea that government—in its supposedly boundless competence—can keep us all safe, and render private gun ownership unnecessary.
As this incident shows, however, California’s government doesn’t even have its own house in order. The state cannot protect residents’ basic privacy from “unauthorized” and “unacceptable” actions. How is it supposed to assume total responsibility for protecting a disarmed populace from violent criminals?
Government very often fails in its most basic responsibilities. Yet gun control advocates insist that we must give up our firearms and entrust our safety to government officials. They’ll keep us all so safe that no one will need a gun.
I’ll pass on that proposition. And thankfully, so have many Californians as well.