On December 4, a collection of Second Amendment rights groups filed a lawsuit against the LA County Sheriff’s department and the California Attorney General challenging the concealed carry permitting regime over issues that include long delays, exorbitant costs and a series of other hurdles that are unconstitutional. The name of the case is CRPA v. LASD.
“The process and costs involved seem deliberately designed to discourage people from exercising their constitutional right to bear arms,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “In some cases, applicants have had to wait for a year or more to get their permit. This is simply inexcusable.”
The California Rifle & Pistol Association, Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California and several private citizens joined SAF in the lawsuit.
The complaint outlines the argument in simple terms:
This action challenges the constitutionality of carry permit issuance policies and laws that make it extremely difficult, if not outright impossible or impermissibly time consuming, for Plaintiffs to obtain permits to carry a concealed firearm in public and therefore to exercise their right to be armed in public, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment’s text “bear arms,” and as recognized by the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022).
There are numerous states that have restrictive permitting schemes, including New Jersey, which are far in excess of what is allowed in Bruen. The outcome of this case could be beneficial for states burdened with unconstitutional requirements. Concealed carry licensing laws are being challenged and falling across the country. Just weeks ago, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Maryland’s handgun licensing law, referencing a “sea change in Second Amendment law,” due to the Bruen Supreme Court decision last year.
“The policies that are adopted in California often find their way outside the borders, both at the state level and…. at the federal level….eventually it could come to a state near you,” said Adam Kraut, Executive Director of the Second Amendment Foundation.
SAF recently earned a victory in a Fourth Circuit, West Virginia-based case challenging the prohibition on the sale of handguns to 18-to-20 year-olds, which was found to be unconstitutional.
