Oh, man, this is so awesome. On 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 ever issued by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, “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. 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 Dhillon was sworn in to lead the Civil Rights Division, numerous complaints received by the division revealed 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.”
Almost two months after receiving notice of the Division’s investigation, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) provided documents that revealed only two approvals from more than 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.
In the filing, DOJ argued that LASD “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.”
A longer version of this editorial is posted on the Gun-Tests.com website. It includes a link to the lawsuit and denials by an LASD spokesman that they didn’t do anything wrong. — Todd Woodard
