The Department of Justice is investigating the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. Why? Because of the insanely expensive and lengthy concealed carry permitting process. The Supreme Court has ruled that a prolonged permitting system is effectively the same as not having one, with regard to a constitutionally protected right, and so the DOJ is taking a look.
But the sheriff's office is claiming it's not really its fault.
Instead, they're blaming a backlog of applications and a lack of staffing for the issue.
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.”
Data from the department show that it has dramatically increased the number of permits it issues since 2022. That year, the Supreme Court found that the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms overrides laws in New York and California that restricted who may legally carry guns outside of the home. Still, critics have alleged the process for issuing those permits takes too long and costs too much.
Now, I have no problem believing there's a staffing issue and insufficient funding for fixing the problem.
Calling it an unfunded mandate is insane, though, because each permit comes at a cost. That is supposedly the funding for this "mandate" in and of itself. If Los Angeles County is using that money for anything other than supporting the permitting unit, then that's something the DOJ will likely find rather interesting, don't you think?
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However, not everyone is thrilled with the investigation.
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.”
And just like that, we can see the stupid at work here.
You'd think a law school professor who studies the Second Amendment wouldn't be quite this idiotic, but there we go.
The DOJ looks at things like racial bias because it's a violation of people's civil rights. This is a good and just function of the Department of Justice and, when they find actual bias, they address it. Our police department shouldn't be in the habit of stomping on people's civil rights.
But what we're seeing here is, potentially, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office violating people's civil rights. It's just different because it involves the right to keep and bear arms, rather than some other civil liberty.
If Charles can't see that, he should probably study up some more.
We'll have to see where the investigation goes, but I suspect that the sheriff's office could have addressed the staffing issue to some degree, but opted not to, and I also think some county lawmakers have deliberately declined to help address it as well. If that's the case, what comes down after the investigation concludes--and I suspect this isn't the last investigation we'll see--should be amusing.
