DOJ Sues LA Sheriff Over Concealed Carry License Processing

On Tuesday, September 30, 2025 the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, claiming the county agency has a pattern or practice of infringing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens seeking concealed carry weapons (CCW) permits.

This lawsuit, filed within the Federal Central District of California, is the first affirmative lawsuit in support of gun owners filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The suit says, “The scope of this constitutional violation is staggering. 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 named defendants in the suit are the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Robert Luna, in his official capacity as Sheriff of Los Angeles County. Sheriff Luna did not comment on the suit.

“The Second Amendment protects the fundamental constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Los Angeles County may not like that right, but the Constitution does not allow them to infringe upon it. This Department of Justice will continue to fight for the Second Amendment.”

On March 27, 2025, the Civil Rights Division initiated the first-of-its-kind Second Amendment investigation due to numerous complaints of unreasonable delays in CCW permitting decisions by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. After analysis of data and documents spanning more than 8,000 CCW permit applications, the Division filed suit seeking relief on behalf of law-abiding applicants.

“The Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This lawsuit seeks to stop Los Angeles County’s egregious pattern and practice of delaying law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to bear arms.”

Shortly after Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon was sworn in to lead the Civil Rights Division, numerous complaints received by the Division revealed inexplicable delays well beyond California statutory requirements and in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

“Citizens living in high-crime areas cannot afford to wait to protect themselves with firearms while Los Angeles County dithers,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. “The right to bear arms is among the founding principles of our nation. It can and must be upheld.”

“It is important to clarify that the LASD’s CCW Unit has been issuing permits at a significantly increased rate, contrary to the statistics and information cited by the Department of Justice in its complaint,” spokesperson Nicole Nishida said in a statement. Nishida didn’t explain how the the statistics and information in the suit could be wrong since it was LASD which supplied the data to DOJ.

Almost two months after receiving notice of the Division’s investigation, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) provided data and documents that revealed only two approvals from over 8,000 applications, and that the Sheriff’s Department set out interviews to approve licenses as far as two years after receiving the completed application.

“We remain committed to addressing all applications fairly, promptly, and with a balanced approach,” Nishida 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.”

However, Nishida didn’t explain why the sheriff’s department believed Second Amendment rights were that important, since the processing delays clearly showed 2A rights were an afterthought in the LASD until DOJ began its civil rights review.

In the filing, the DOJ argued that LASD has “has systematically denied thousands of law-abiding Californians their fundamental Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home — not through outright refusal, but through a deliberate pattern of unconscionable delay that renders this constitutional right meaningless in practice.”

This investigation was conducted by attorneys at the Civil Rights Division and Assistant U.S. Attorneys within the Central District of California’s U.S. Attorney Office.

The DOJ asked gun-permit applicants, “If you or someone you know has applied for a concealed carry permit in Los Angeles or any jurisdiction within the United States and have not received a reply or decision within four months after applying, please email Community.2ndAmendmentCA@usdoj.gov. The mailbox is actively monitored by attorneys assigned to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

In a statement, LASD said that since taking office in December 2022, “the Sheriff has inherited a dysfunctional system that was not funded for staffing” but has since taken steps to reduce the backlog from about 10,000 applications to roughly 3,200, noting that the department has only 13 personnel to process applications.

It attributed the delays cited by the DOJ in part to a transition from a paper-based system to an online platform that was ongoing at the time of the DOJ’s investigation, noting that LASD has approved more than 19,000 applications since 2020 — including more than 5,000 this year.

“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,” LASD said. The LASD didn’t offer how many carry permits have actually been granted, beyond the two cited by DOJ.