The city of Murrieta, California wants to give back to its citizens. Thanks to a new tax measure, they’ve got money coming from other places and now they want to make life a bit easier for the good people who call Murrieta home.

In particular, they’re going to foot the bill for the background check required for a California concealed carry permit. Now, that may not sound like much, but since citizens were paying $300 for that, it’s a nice chunk of change.

Now, thanks to this largesse, folks in Murrieta will be able to save money getting a permit. Not that some won’t be able to afford it anyway.

Getting a concealed carry weapons permit in Murrieta isn’t any easier this year, but it will be a little cheaper by using taxpayer money to pay for some of the fees.

“The purpose of this change was to give back to the citizens of Murrieta for the Measure T tax measure that was passed last year to give us extra tax money for police, public safety and stuff like that,” said Sgt. Jeremy Durrant of the Murrieta Police Department.

The fee breakdown before this year included a background check, a license fee, the fingerprinting fee, a psychological evaluation and weapon and safety training. That’s a grand total of nearly $800.

But now the city will be paying for that background check, saving people in Murrieta close to $300.

“There are many categories of fees associated with getting a (Carry Concealed Weapon), some we have control over and some we don’t,” Durrant said.

Seriously? $500 is the reduced rate?

Sweet breakdancing Tesla on a rocket-power Segway, that’s freaking ridiculous. And yet that’s still a damn sight better than the $800 people were having to pay.

Democrats have held control over California for decades. Democrats claim to be all about the “little guy,” the poor of our fair nation. They routinely claim that so many of their policies are motivated by compassion for the less fortunate.

And yet, they have made it virtually impossible for those same less fortunate souls to get a concealed carry permit. The fact that they’re a “may issue” state and can turn people down anytime they want is bad enough, but how many don’t even bother to ask because they simply can’t afford the ridiculously high rate?

This is a constitutionally protected right, for crying out loud. This is something the Founding Fathers believed we had a God-given right to do, and California is charging people as much as $800 to exercise that right?

If Alabama (hypothetically) decided to charge people $25 to process a voter’s registration card, progressives all over the country would flipping lose their minds. “Poll tax!” they’d scream, and it wouldn’t be completely unwarranted. After all, if requiring people to pay for a picture ID card counts as a poll tax, I’d imagine a processing fee would as well.

But there’s absolute silence from the left about an $800 fee to get permission to carry a gun.

It’s almost hilarious because these same people dismiss Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s comments about the Second Amendment being treated like a second class right out of hand. They think the notion is absolutely ridiculous…all while supporting crap like this.