While some parts of the Justice Department are actively defending anti-Second Amendment measures, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, filed the first Department of Justice affirmative lawsuit in support of gun owners in a case brought against Los Angeles County, California.
On September 30, the Civil Rights Division under Ms. Dhillon filed a complaint called United States of America v. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, challenging its pattern of infringements against citizens seeking concealed carry weapons permits.
(We wrote yesterday how Ms. Dhillon is emerging as the tip of the spear in a bifurcated Justice Department when it comes to actively protecting the Second Amendment based upon President Trump’s February executive order.)
In her announcement of the lawsuit on X, Ms. Dhillon wrote, “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right. This lawsuit seeks to stop Los Angeles County’s egregious pattern and practice of denying law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to bear arms.”
Gun rights groups also recently sued Santa Clara County for its exorbitant fees, as we reported last week.
A statement on the DOJ website noted that the civil rights division began an investigation in March, analyzing data and documents from over 8,000 CCW permit applications, and found “a deliberate pattern of unconscionable delay that renders this constitutional right meaningless in practice.”
The nine-page complaint states, “The scope of this constitutional violation is staggering,” adding, “The human cost is profound.”
Among the numerous findings the complaint catalogs include the following:
- Defendants received 3,982 applications for new concealed carry licenses. Of these, they approved exactly two — a mere 0.05% approval rate…
- Defendants force applicants to wait an average of 281 days — over nine months — just to begin processing their applications, with some waiting as long as 1,030 days (nearly three years).
- As of May 2025, approximately 2,768 applications for new licenses remain pending, with interviews scheduled as late as November 2026…
For perhaps the first time ever, the Department of Justice is acknowledging what gun owners have long known, affirming in the complaint, “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.”
In response to the news of the DOJ’s lawsuit, Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wrote to the following on X:
We are thrilled to see the federal government throw its weight behind an issue that SAF and its partners in this litigation (CRPA, GOA, and GOC) identified about two years ago in launching the CRPA v. LASD litigation.
