The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) has sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for allegedly denying residents’ Second Amendment rights through an inordinately long concealed weapons permit application process.

The lawsuit, filed by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, comes on the heels of a DOJ investigation and a partially successful lawsuit filed by the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA).

In the lawsuit filed on Sept. 30, the DOJ accuses Sheriff Robert Luna of overseeing a system designed to deny citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

“Between January 2024 and March 2025, Defendants received 3,982 applications for new concealed carry licenses,“ the lawsuit states. ”Of these, they approved exactly two—a mere 0.05 percent approval rate that cannot be explained by legitimate disqualifying factors alone.

“This is not bureaucratic inefficiency; it is systematic obstruction of constitutional rights.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement announcing the lawsuit that it “seeks to stop Los Angeles County’s egregious pattern and practice of delaying law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to bear arms.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The sheriff’s department emailed a statement to The Epoch Times expressing support for the Second Amendment and defending its handling of concealed carry weapons (CCW) permit requests. According to the statement, the DOJ fails to take into account staffing issues and the fact that the department is changing from paper to digital records in the permitting process.

“Despite significant staffing shortages, we have successfully approved more than 19,000 CCW applications since 2020,“ the statement reads. ”Year to date in 2025, we have issued more than 5,000 CCW permits, including 2,722 new applications.”

The department was dealing with a backlog of permit requests before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, according to the statement.

In that landmark decision, the high court ruled that carrying a firearm in public is a constitutional right. It also ruled that any gun laws that do not follow the plain text of the Second Amendment and do not have a historical analog from the time of the amendment’s ratification are unconstitutional.

New CCW requests increased dramatically after Bruen, according to the statement.

“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,” the statement reads.

In its statement, the DOJ said this is its first lawsuit in support of U.S. gun owners. Attorney General Pam Bondi said it will not be the last. This is in line with a mandate issued by President Donald Trump shortly after he took office.

On Feb. 7, 2025, he issued an executive order for the DOJ to “examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies ... to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of [U.S.] citizens.”

Trump also ordered Bondi to come up with a plan of action to address any issues found.

The DOJ began an investigation on March 27, 2025. According to the Sept. 30 statement, the department received numerous complaints about the permitting process.

“After analysis of data and documents spanning over 8,000 CCW permit applications, the Division [on Sept. 30] filed suit seeking relief on behalf of law-abiding applicants,” the statement reads.

The DOJ investigation also came after a decision in a CRPA lawsuit challenging the alleged permit delays.

On Aug. 20, 2024, Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted limited relief on the waiting times for two named plaintiffs. She also agreed that 18 months is too long to wait for a permit.

Chuck Michel, CRPA president and general counsel, said California gun owners have spent the past three years working to bring California in line with Bruen.

“Stubborn jurisdictions, such as Los Angeles, dug in their heels with delays, fees, and new requirements to keep lawful citizens from securing CCWs,” Michel wrote in a CRPA statement. “We are thrilled that the Trump administration finds this abuse as egregious as we do.”