08/07/2026
After years of dragging its feet, Los Angeles County has finally been forced to treat the Second Amendment like an actual right. The Second Amendment Foundation just announced a major settlement in California Rifle & Pistol Association v. LASD, after the sheriff’s department represented that it is now processing concealed carry applications within California’s 120‑day legal deadline instead of letting them sit for a year or more.
This case wasn’t just about one backlog in one county. Along the way, SAF and its partners won a preliminary injunction that compelled California to start issuing carry permits to qualified non‑residents, marking the first ruling in the country that said your right to carry doesn’t evaporate when you cross a state line. Sacramento later codified that change in AB 1078. The litigation also helped end automatic five‑year CCW bans based solely on temporary restraining orders that were later dissolved, pushed La Verne to subsidize psych exam costs and trim some fees, and fed into a parallel DOJ civil‑rights lawsuit that hammered LASD over its “pattern or practice” of delaying permits in violation of the Constitution.
SAF’s Adam Kraut put it plainly: California officials have treated carry rights as second‑class for a long time, and this settlement is proof that persistent, smart litigation can force them to comply when they refuse to fix things on their own. The broader fight isn’t over—SAF is already talking about “true interstate reciprocity” as the next frontier—but for Californians and non‑residents alike, this case is a concrete example of what happens when gun owners stop just complaining about delays and start taking agencies to court.
