The federal Department of Justice says it has launched an investigation into whether the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is violating people’s gun rights with excessive fees and wait times for concealed carry permits.
The DOJ announced Thursday afternoon that it was opening an investigation into the Sheriff’s Department’s possible abuse of 2nd Amendment rights, part of a broader review of “restrictive firearms-related laws” in California and other states.
The federal authorities cited a lawsuit that challenged the 18-month delay plaintiffs faced in receiving concealed carry licenses from LASD as a reason for the probe. A DOJ news release stated that it is likely others are “experiencing similarly long delays that are unduly burdening, or effectively denying, the Second Amendment rights of the people of Los Angeles.”
The Justice Department called California a “particularly egregious offender” that has resisted the Supreme Court’s recent pro-2nd Amendment rulings and enacted new legislation to further restrict the right to bear arms. Last month, Trump directed Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to launch a review of 2nd Amendment law and infringements nationwide.
“This Department of Justice will not stand idly by while States and localities infringe on the Second Amendment rights of ordinary, law-abiding Americans,” said Bondi in a statement about the LASD investigation. “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and under my watch, the Department will actively enforce the Second Amendment just like it actively enforces other fundamental constitutional rights.”
The Sheriff’s Department issued a statement Thursday saying it respects and upholds the 2nd Amendment. The department said limited staff and a backlog of applications are to blame for the delays in permit approvals.
“We are committed to processing all Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) applications in compliance with state and local laws to promote responsible gun ownership,” the statement said. “The Department is facing a significant staffing crisis, with only 14 personnel in our CCW Unit, yet we have successfully approved 15,000 CCW applications. Currently, we are diligently working through approximately 4,000 active cases, striving to meet this unfunded mandate.”
Jacob Charles, an associate professor of law at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law who studies the 2nd Amendment, said he had not seen a similar investigation before. This type of DOJ probe, which is classified as a pattern-or-practice investigation, typically focuses on police misconduct such as excessive use of force or racial bias.
The investigation struck him as “another culture war issue pitting red versus blue” amid a broader flurry of “partisan targeting” by the Trump administration of liberal jurisdictions and groups.
“This has to be seen in the context of Trump attacking law firms, universities, and cities, counties and states who don’t profess fealty to him personally and to his vision,” Charles said. “He’s not even pretending to be a president for all of America.”
Another expert on 2nd Amendment law, University of Chicago law professor Darrell A.H. Miller, called the investigation an example of the Trump administration “delivering red meat to their supporters through every channel of power that they currently possess.”
“The fact that it [the investigation] hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, but clearly it just highlights the fact that, for the Trump administration, 2nd Amendment rights are really important rights, especially to the Trump base,” Miller said, “and so they are going to use the power of the Department of Justice to advance those priorities.”
Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle and Pistol Assn., celebrated the investigation and told The Times it “is one result” of his group’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of LASD’s concealed carry permitting process.
“I think the reason the DOJ is getting involved in this particular jurisdiction is because of the things we uncovered in this lawsuit,” he said.
Michel said he would not be surprised if the investigation expanded beyond the county because, he said, other jurisdictions and police agencies in California, including the Los Angeles Police Department, are also guilty of long wait times and exorbitant costs for permits.
“The primary issues that we are now facing from somewhat recalcitrant jurisdictions is excessive fees to go through an application process and excessive wait times to try to get a license — and wait times that exceed the state 120-day limit, some going out to 18 months or two years,” he said.
Bondi said she hoped Thursday’s announcement would prompt other localities to “voluntarily embrace their duty to protect Second Amendment rights.” If not, this investigation will be the first of many similar ones in California and across the country, she added.
Pattern-or-practice investigations are conducted by civil rights attorneys at the Justice Department to search for patterns of misconduct within a given law enforcement agency.
Miller, the University of Chicago professor, said the investigation marked a sharp reversal for Republicans, who in the past have spoken out against other pattern-and-practice investigations, including into problematic police departments. Recent probes have followed civilian deaths such as the killing of Breonna Taylor by a Louisville, Ky., police officer and the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
“Republicans in particular extolled a lot of belief in local control and states’ rights,” he said. Now, for the 2nd Amendment, “those priorities get reversed.”
Miller said the investigation is limited by existing law, which will restrict what the Justice Department can find problematic with L.A. County’s wait times and fees.
Although the Supreme Court has suggested that particularly “onerous” gun permit processes may go too far, it has not defined what amount of time is too long to wait for a permit or what licensing fee is too high, he said. And because the courts have yet to set a standard, the Justice Department will have a hard time declaring that a certain length of time or fee associated with the county’s permitting process constitutes unconstitutional behavior, he said.
The county could defend itself by showing that its permitting process is functioning as best as it can with limited resources and funding, he said. However, should the Justice Department find something more nefarious — such as proof that the Sheriff’s Department was intentionally and systematically slow-walking permits — there would be a case for declaring a pattern or practice of unconstitutional behavior.
