By Michael Clements
Contributing Writer
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have settled a lawsuit filed in September 2025 accusing the department of engaging in a pattern or practice to deprive citizens of their Second Amendment rights.
Under the agreement, the LASD will reduce the time it takes to get a gun permit.
In addition, over the next four years, the sheriff’s office will track the number of permit applications it receives and how long it takes to process them. The shortest and longest times will be posted on the LASD’s website along with the average number of days for each permit process.
In an emailed statement, the Sheriff’s Department welcomed the resolution. According to the statement, the DOJ recognized steps the LASD took to improve its application process.
“During the last year, the department has made significant strides,” the statement reads.
In the past year, the LASD eliminated its application backlog and established a 16-member Carry Conceal Unit. It also transitioned from paper applications to a computer process.
The department is already reporting application statistics on its webpage and soon will expand the public reporting to include total application processing times and other relevant information, according to the statement.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said Sheriff Robert Luna and his staff have addressed the matter head-on.
“The sheriff acknowledged the problem and devoted substantial additional resources … to cutting waiting times dramatically,” Dhillon stated.
In an emailed statement when the lawsuit was filed, Luna voiced support for the Second Amendment and defended his department’s handling of concealed carry weapons permit requests. According to the statement, LASD was understaffed and in the process of 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 2025 statement read. “Year to date in 2025, we have issued more than 5,000 CCW permits, including 2,722 new applications.”
A DOJ press release states that the agreement aligns with the standard set in the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
In that 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.
The lawsuit grew out of an investigation into a possible pattern or practice designed to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit, filed on Sept. 30, 2025, accused Luna of overseeing a system designed to deny citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
The DOJ claimed that between January 2024 and March 2025, up to 3,982 Los Angeles County residents applied for new concealed carry licenses, but only two were approved. This is a 0.05% approval rate.
