Search Articles
LOS ANGELES (CN) — The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday, claiming that the lengthy delays in processing and issuing concealed carry permits violate the Second Amendment rights of people who want to arm themselves when they leave the house.
“This case concerns more than administrative delays — it addresses a coordinated effort by defendants to nullify through bureaucratic obstruction what they cannot deny through law,” federal prosecutors said in their complaint. “When constitutional rights are deliberately delayed beyond any reasonable timeframe, they are effectively denied.”
The sheriff’s department received 3,982 new applications for concealed carry permits, as opposed to renewal requests, between January 2024 and March 2025, attorneys with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division claim, from which only two permits were issued.
Applicants have to wait an average of 281 days — over nine months — just for the sheriff’s department to begin processing their applications, with some waiting as long as 1,030 days, or nearly three years, the Justice Department added.
The federal government is suing the sheriff’s department under the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act over what it says is a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers that deprives people of rights secured and protected by the Constitution.
The U.S. seeks an injunction that prohibits the sheriff’s department from implementing state law, which requires that the department provide concealed carry applicants with an initial approval or denial for a new license within 90 days, in a manner that violates the Second Amendment.
The sheriff department said in a statement late Tuesday that, contrary to the statistics and information cited by the Department of Justice in its complaint, it has been issuing concealed carry permits at a significantly increased rate.
The department cited a transition from a manual, paper-based system to an online system that streamlines the application process as well as staffing shortages as reasons for the backlog in issuing the permits.
“We remain committed to addressing all applications fairly, promptly, and with a balanced approach,” the sheriff’s department said. “We are confident a fair and impartial review of our efforts will show that the department has not engaged in any pattern or practice of depriving individuals of their Second Amendment rights.”
The U.S. attorney’s complaint echoes that of Second Amendment advocates who sued the LA County Sheriff’s Department as well as a local police department two years ago over failing to timely process concealed carry applications in the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark* Bruen* ruling.
“In anticipation of bad-faith efforts to obstruct its ruling in recalcitrant jurisdictions, the Bruen court expressly invited challenges such as this one,” the California Rifle & Pistol Association and the Second Amendment Foundation said in their Dec. 4, 2023, complaint, referring to the Supreme Court decision.
In the 6-3 ruling overturning a New York law that required so-called proper cause to get a permit to carry a concealed gun, the Supreme Court had said that “because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.”
Whereas California lawmakers have been tightening the state’s already strict gun laws in recent years, in part in response to the prevalence of ghost guns and the numerous mass shootings across the country, gun rights supporters have been going through the courts to challenge, sometimes successfully, the myriad restrictions imposed by the state.
Tuesday’s lawsuit adds to the deluge of litigation between the Trump administration and both California and the state’s local governments over their perceived liberal policies that are at odds with the president’s priorities.
The federal government recently sued the city of LA over its sanctuary ordinance that keeps police out of immigration enforcement, and it has sued the state over allowing transgender girls to participate in female high school sports teams.
Follow @edpetterssonSubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.