AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane, File

Getting a concealed carry permit in California isn’t necessarily easy. In some parts, it’s not overly difficult, but in a place like Los Angeles? There, it’s virtually unheard of for regular folks to get a permit. After all, in a “may issue” state, there’s no requirement to issue one. The applicant has to demonstrate a need for a permit.

Unfortunately, “I’m a free American” isn’t considered sufficient grounds in the People’s Republic of California.

Now, to add insult to injury, the LAPD wants to cancel some citizens’ permits because it believes they don’t need them anymore.

The Los Angeles Police Department has moved to cancel most of the few remaining concealed weapons permits in civilian hands, according to new filings in a decades-old legal case.

Chief Michel Moore said in a sworn declaration he did not believe a group of people who obtained so-called CCWs as the result of a 1994 lawsuit were still entitled to the permits, because it was unlikely the individuals still faced extraordinary physical danger to their lives.

“I do not believe the continued wholesale allowance for each to possess a CCW license based on circumstances that may have existed 24 years ago is in the best interest of the public,” Moore said.

Permits to carry a concealed firearm are allowed under California law but it’s up to local police chiefs and sheriffs to decide if an applicant has a valid reason to obtain one. The plaintiffs in the 1994 case, called Assenza, et al. v. City of Los Angeles, et al., sued because the LAPD had a long-standing practice of simply denying every applicant.

The City settled and promised in 1995 the LAPD would issue permits to the 30 plaintiffs, according to court records.

“The City should keep its word,” said attorney Burt Jacobson, a former federal prosecutor and one of the plaintiffs in the case. “They wanted a settlement, and they wrote the settlement!” Jacobson said he’s faced recent threats as a result of court cases that ended many years ago.

The City and Chief Moore have asked a judge to vacate the ruling.

Hopefully, that doesn’t happen.

However, this is a prime example of what happens when citizens are required to “prove” they “need” to exercise their constitutionally-protected right to self-defense. Some bureaucrat will invariably decide that they don’t need it, if not now then at some point in the future. They’ll then try to revoke the permission that had been granted.

If you honestly believe this is beneficial for anyone, you’re deluded.

The truth is, you don’t necessarily get a lot of warning before an attack. How many people are killed each year in California because the state requires them to prove they “need” a permit first? How many people are gunned down because the bad guys don’t have to do any such thing?

Then, to top it off, we have the LAPD more than willing to cancel permits because it believes people don’t need them anymore, apparently without even talking to the permit holders.

This how some people want the nation to live?

No thanks.