The Justice Department is suing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, alleging it is purposely stalling conceal carry license applcations. File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI | License Photo
The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, accusing it of denying residents their right to bear arms by deliberately stalling their concealed carry license application process.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, arguing that the sheriff’s office was violating the Second Amendment rights of those seeking a concealed carry license “through a deliberate pattern of unconscionable delay that renders this constitutional right meaningless in practice.”
The Justice Department said it was its first-ever affirmative lawsuit in support of gun owners.
“The Second Amendment protects the fundamental constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms. Los Angeles County may not like that right, but the Constitution does not allow them to infringe upon it,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
According to California state law, a person who wishes to carry a concealed weapon in public must obtain a carry a concealed carry weapon license, which must be issued by a county sheriff, police chief or other head of a municipal police department.
The Justice Department lawsuit states that between January and March, the sheriff’s department received 3,982 applications for a new carry concealed weapon license, of which only two licenses have been issued and two licenses have been denied.
About 2,768 of those applications remained pending as of May 8, federal prosecutors said, adding that the remaining 1,210 applications were withdrawn.
Of those pending applications, interviews have been scheduled for as late as November 2026, it said.
The lawsuit continued that under state requirements it had to make an initial determination within 90 days, but the sheriff’s office allegedly had applicants wait an average of 281 days to begin processing their applications, with some waiting nearly three years.
“Defendants have constructed an administrative labyrinth designed to frustrate and ultimately deny this fundamental right to virtually all who seek to exercise it,” the lawsuit states.
“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. When constitutional rights are deliberately delayed beyond any reasonable timeframe, they are effectively denied.”
The sheriff’s department has denied the allegations, explaining that when the Justice Department investigation began shortly after Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon took office in April, it was transitioning from a paper-based system to a digital one.
Since 2020, it said that despite staff shortages, more than 19,000 licenses have been approved. And year to date, more than 5,000 permits approved, including 2,722 new applications.
It said that when Sheriff Robert Luna assumed office in December 2022 he “inherited a dysfunctional system” with a backlog of some 10,000 applications, which has since been reduced to about 3,200.
“We remain committed to addressing all applications fairly, promptly and with a balanced approach,” the Los Angeles County 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.”
