Guns have been flying off the shelves in California, but Gov. Gavin Newsom failed to include gun stores on his list of essential businesses. On the other hand, Newsom outsourced the shut-down decision to the sheriffs in California’s 58 counties.

“I believe in people’s right to bear arms,” Newsom told reporters, “but I’ll defer to the sheriff in this instance, the sheriffs in their respective jurisdictions.” Down in San Diego County, home to California’s second-largest city, County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher thought he should make the call.

“We consulted with our county counsel,” Fletcher told KPBS. “It is not our belief that gun stores are essential businesses, and they should not be open in the county of San Diego.” It wasn’t clear who the supervisor meant by “our.”

The county counsel is not the sheriff, and neither is Nathan Fletcher, a Republican and independent before registering as a Democrat. The former California Assemblyman now bills himself as “leading the charge for progressive change.”  The people of San Diego County did not share the progressive’s “belief” that gun stores should be closed down.

David Chong, owner of AO Sword Firearms in El Cajon, told KBPS he had no plans to close, and that shutting down gun stores would be “sterilizing” the Second Amendment by preventing people from buying the arms they have the right to bear. According to Michael Schwartz of San Diego County Gun Owners, “People are purchasing firearms because they’re in fear for their safety,” always a concern in times of crisis.

In two years, Californians will mark 30 years since the Los Angeles riots. At that time, law-abiding Californians and business owners who had nothing to do with the Rodney King case found themselves besieged by mobs of looters and arsonists. With police nowhere in sight, many Californians deployed firearms to kept the mob at bay.

The riots continued for six days, leaving 63 people dead, with more than 16,000 riot-related crimes, including 7,000 fires, and of the more than 12,000 arrested, 1,044 were illegal aliens. In a situation like the coronavirus crisis, riots could easily break out, and a shutdown of gun stores would deprive citizens of the ability to protect their lives and property.

Supervisor Fletcher, a former U.S. Marine, is “asking for the public’s cooperation and help” to report non-essential businesses that remain open. As Fletcher recruits informers, the state plans to release 3500 prison inmates and embattled Californians face mounting woes on the economic side.

Nathan Fletcher is married to California assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, San Diego Democrat, hailed by the Atlantic as California’s “most influential female politician,” on Politico’s list of 50 “thinkers, doers, and visionaries transforming American politics.” Gonzalez is the author of Assembly Bill 5, which restricts freelance writers to 35 submissions, per publication, per year.

According to California’s Legislative Analyst, AB 5 has already affected more than 1 million independent contractor and freelance working Californians, and the list of industries impacted by the law has surged past 300. Republicans have petitioned the governor to suspend AB 5 but at this writing, the governor has not restricted the measure, which is harming response to coronavirus.

AB 5 measure targets all independent contractors, even those in the medical field. Rural hospitals have relied on independent contractors, but as former California congressman Doug Ose told the California Globe, “that approach is problematic now that AB 5 has become law.”

Through AB 5, a declaration against independence, Lorena Gonzalez restricts Californians’ ability to earn a living. Nathan Fletcher’s strategic defenseless initiative restricts people’s ability to protect themselves. As their two-front war surges against the people, the Democrat power couple is riding high.

With her state salary of $114,877 plus a generous array of benefits, assemblywoman Gonzalez is living the good life. Nathan Fletcher pulls down $180,037.80 per year as a county supervisor, with no limit on outside jobs.

Nathan Fletcher is a “Professor of Practice,” in the department of political science at UC San Diego, the first to gain such a position. “The Professor of Practice series,” a UCSD website explains, “is designed to bring to campus distinguished professionals who are leaders in their fields but do not have the academic backgrounds typically required for a faculty appointment.”

Nathan Fletcher holds a BA in political science from California Baptist University and when running for mayor of San Diego, Fletcher declined to release his academic transcripts. Even so, UCSD brought him aboard and heavily redacted responses to a public records act request for information on Fletcher’s academic background.

“Nathan Fletcher is the Great Gatsby of our time,” wrote Norma Damashek in the San Diego Free Press. “A fabricated man filled with longing and wild ambition but not quite who you think he is… was… wants to be.”

Californians can be forgiven for regarding him as unqualified, but Fletcher’s Linkedin profile bills him as “a Professor at the University of California, San Diego,” as though he was just like all those actual professors who earned a PhD. In California, to paraphrase Louise in Being There, all you have to be is a progressive Democrat to get anything you want.