As Tom Knighton covered earlier today, the Department of Justice has filed an historic lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department over the lengthy delays that concealed carry applicants are facing; the first time the DOJ's Civil Rights Division (or the DOJ as a whole) has instigated litigation in defense of the right to keep and bear arms. I'm going to a closer look at the lawsuit itself, which includes documentation of some outrageous abuses of our right to keep and bear arms.
The lawsuit, filed today in the Central District of California, follows on the heels of separate litigation brought against the LASD by the California Rifle & Pistol Association and a coalition of Second Amendment groups. CRPA, Second Amendment Foundation, and Gun Owners of America had already detailed the excruciatingly long delays suffered by some of its members, but the Department of Justice was able to get data that the private plaintiffs weren't able to access through discovery.
Between January 2024 and March 2025, Defendants received 3,982 applications for new concealed carry licenses. Of these, they approved exactly two—a mere 0.05% approval rate that cannot be explained by legitimate disqualifying factors alone. This is not bureaucratic inefficiency; it is systematic obstruction of constitutional rights.
The mechanics of this obstruction are equally damning. Defendants force applicants to wait an average of 281 days—over nine months—just to begin processing their applications, with some waiting as long as 1,030 days (nearly three years). The median delay is 372 days. These delays far exceed California’s own statutory requirement that licensing authorities provide initial determinations within 90 days, demonstrating Defendants’ flagrant disregard for both state law and constitutional obligations.
The human cost is profound. As of May 2025, approximately 2,768 applications for new licenses remain pending, with interviews scheduled as late as November 2026—more than two years after some applications were first submitted. Numerous applicants simply gave up and withdrew their applications, often after waiting months in Defendants’ deliberately stalled process. These are not abstract statistics; they represent thousands of law-abiding citizens who have been stripped of their constitutional right to self-defense outside their homes.
It is outrageous that the sheriff's department approved just two applicants for new carry permits in more than a year, and the fact that less than 4,000 Los Angeles County residents applied for a carry license over a 14-month period is troubling as well. The DOJ's lawsuit also notes that more than 1,000 applicants withdrew their applications, which is an extraordinarily high number. If that many people are saying "to hell with it" because they're stuck in a bureaucratic limbo, how many other Los Angelenos aren't even bothering to apply because of the lengthy delays?
Sheriff Luna has previously said that staffing shortfalls in the sheriff's office are what's behind the delays, but even if there was a sole employee processing these applications they should have been able to approve more than one every seven months. As the DOJ says, this is a systematic obstruction of the exercise of a fundamental civil right.
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division, headed up by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, is seeking a declaration that the LASD's "pattern and practice of subjecting law-abiding applicants for concealed carry weapon permits to excessive delays violates the Second Amendment as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment", as well as a declaration that approving "virtually no new concealed carry weapon permit applications" submitted by law-abiding citizens also infringes on the right to keep and bear arms.
Finally, the Trump administration is asking the courts to issue a "permanent injunction prohibiting Defendants from implementing California law and regulations governing the issuance of concealed carry licenses, including, but not limited to, Cal. Penal Code §§ 26150-26235, in a manner that violates the Second Amendment as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and 34 U.S.C. §12601."
In a press release accompanying the lawsuit, the DOJ notes that it took two months for the sheriff's department to notify the government that it had only issued two permits between March 2024 and May 2025. I'm curious if the pace has picked up over the past few months or if the LASD is still processing applications in such a snail-like fashion. If they have managed to speed things up, I'm sure we'll hear about it when the department files its response to the DOJ's lawsuit.
It's great to see the DOJ Civil Rights Division actively defending the right to keep and bear arms, including Dhillon's recent appearance before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that Illinois' ban on so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines violates the Second Amendment.
Unfortunately, there's no shortage of other jurisdictions that demand the DOJ's attention Applicants in New York City are facing equally long delays, while applicants in places like Santa Clara County, California have to fork over more than $1,000 just to apply for a two-year permit. I hope this is just the first of many such lawsuits challenging these blatant infringements of our Second Amendment rights, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the DOJ's next target will be.
