PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Ed Peruta: Fan of gun permits, scourge of public agencies :: 11/15/2014
In San Diego, Edward Peruta is known as the enemy of the county’s strict concealed-carry gun permit policies, last week winning a federal appeals court ruling.
In his home state, Connecticut, he’s known as the scourge of virtually every public agency. He’s tangled with school districts, zoning officials, a town manager, police officers. In 2009, he sued Hartford, arguing that the city’s new parking meters infringed on his freedom to travel.
He lost that case, but none of his passion.
“I’m not a guy who backs down too easy,” he said, “if I know I’m right.”
Peruta, 65, is a man of many parts. A former Marine and worm farmer, he’s now a motocross track operator, private investigator and host of a public access TV show. He’s been married three times, owns homes in three states (Connecticut, Florida and California), and possesses gun permits in three states (Connecticut, Florida and Utah).
In recent years, his life has followed twin channels. Peruta owns American News and Information Services, whose freelance videographers race to crime scenes and courtrooms, seeking dramatic footage to sell to local media outlets. This much-debated company exists on the fringes of TV and video journalism.
But his other avocation, as a prominent advocate of gun owners’ rights, has been even more controversial. On Wednesday, two of three judges on a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal panel backed Peruta. In a ruling with profound implications for California, the majority found that local policies violated the public’s constitutional right to bear arms. Instead of demanding that applicants show “good cause” — for instance, that they have been threatened or stalked — they found sufficient a simple desire for self-defense.
Writing in dissent, Judge Sidney Thomas argued that the ruling meant that citizens “have been placed in jeopardy by the majority opinion,” a view echoed by critics like the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Peruta, though, insisted, that the ruling reflects common sense: “I can read the Second Amendment. I don’t know about all these interpretations. I go with what’s in black and white.”
Drawn to action
Born and reared on the outskirts of Hartford, young Ed Peruta could not wait to join the Marines.
“I grew up watching patriotic military movies,” he said. Enlisting at the age of 17, he arrived in Vietnam late in 1967. Months later, he was with the 1st Marine Division 11 miles southwest of Da Nang when the Tet Offensive erupted, pushing back South Vietnamese and American units. “We were the Marines who stood in the bottleneck and stopped them,” Peruta said.
Rotating out of Vietnam in October 1968, Sgt. Peruta finished his active duty as a marksmanship instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy. Honorably discharged, the veteran returned to Connecticut and a dispatcher’s job with the Wethersfield Police Department. Soon, he was a police officer — and soon after that, he left the force.
“The combination of age, coming back from Vietnam and being newly married, that was a bad mix,” he said.
He was still drawn to action, though. Listening to the police scanner, he raced to crime scenes with a camera, then peddled his photos to newspapers. In the early 1980s, he abandoned stills for video and gained a reputation for pushing aside official barriers in pursuit of eye-grabbing close-ups. When police pushed him back, Peruta sued, insisting he had a First Amendment right to the scene as long as he did not disturb evidence.
In February 1990, he landed on the cover of the National Press Photographers Association’s magazine. “TV freelancer fights state cops,” the headline read, “and wins.”
His biggest scoop came in April 2001. On a flight from San Francisco to Shanghai, 22-year-old twins got into an argument that escalated into a fight. When the women attacked flight staff, the United jet veered off course and headed to Anchorage. A passenger, San Diego’s George Henderson, captured the fracas with his video camera.
In Alaska, the twins were escorted to jail and Henderson was greeted by reporters. When they offered a modest sum for the film, he called his brother-in-law — Peruta.
“Don’t sell it for $50,” Peruta advised.
Within hours, networks were bidding for the footage. The segment eventually sold to “20/20” and other outlets for a healthy sum.
“Between all the programs, it was thousands of dollars,” Henderson said. “Our trip was paid for and more.”
Over the years, American News has attracted plenty of critics. In off-the-record conversations, San Diego TV news professionals said Peruta’s service does not adhere to basic journalistic ethics.
But when the San Diego Sheriff’s Department refused press credentials to the agency’s stringers, some warned that law enforcement was endangering freedom of speech.
“Under no circumstances should the police be doing it,” Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, told U-T San Diego in 2012, warning of the potential for censorship.
This man, though, is unlikely to be stifled.
Familiar stance
Peruta’s first two marriages were short-lived, but in 1990 he married Lois Sigafoos. While this flight attendant was based in Los Angeles, most of her family had settled in San Diego. (After her parents died, their ashes would be scattered from Mount Soledad.) Today, Ed and Lois divide their time between their properties Rocky Hill, Conn.; Vero Beach, Fla.; and San Diego.
On the East Coast, they inhabit a house and several condos. Here their “property” is an RV they park at Pacific Beach’s Campland on the Bay and a room in the house of Lois’ sister and her husband, the Hendersons.
Over the years, Peruta has tussled with the San Diego sheriff’s office, pushing for his stringers’ credentials and looser policies on concealed-carry gun permits. He maintains that his work with American News exposes him to dangerous situations. It’s also made him leery of local law enforcement.
“My wife likes San Diego, and San Diego scares me,” he said. “I’m not used to walking up to a homicide scene and having a police officer push me around. I don’t have to move, I’m not in a crime scene here.”
On the far side of the continent, that’s a familiar stance.
“He’s a complainant who has a number of cases before the commission,” said Lisa Siegel, a lawyer for the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission.
Is he well-known to the commission?
Siegel laughed. “You could say that.”
For every loss like the doomed campaign against Hartford’s parking meters, there’s a win like his successful fight to transform his 40-acre worm farm into a motocross course.
Several people contacted for this story were critical of his methods. Yet all, without exception, asked to remain anonymous.
“I don’t want to be sued,” one said.
Friends and family insist Peruta is a pussycat. “He’s a very kind man,” Henderson said. “He’s a veteran who has helped other veterans pursue and obtain their benefits.”
If his pursuits lead him into court, he’s OK with that, too.
“This,” Peruta said about his triumph over the sheriff’s department, “is not my first rodeo.”
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/nov/14/ed-peruta-gun-permits/all/?print
