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The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has officially put the City of Glendale on notice over what it calls an unconstitutional scheme to make people pay roughly $2,000 to get a concealed‑carry permit. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon warned city officials they have a very short deadline to fix the fee hike or face a federal lawsuit — and this is exactly the kind of bold, plain‑spoken move gun owners have been waiting for.
What happened: Glendale’s CCW fees and the DOJ’s one‑week ultimatum
Glendale quietly raised its listed application fees for a concealed‑carry license from the low hundreds to about $1,078 for an initial permit and $828 for renewals. Add mandatory training, fingerprinting, and a city‑required psychological evaluation and the real out‑of‑pocket cost to get a permit climbs toward $2,000. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to city officials and posted a public notice giving Glendale a short, one‑week window to negotiate a settlement or roll back the fees — otherwise the DOJ is prepared to file suit.
Legal theory: Bruen, “exorbitant fees,” and pattern‑or‑practice claims
The DOJ isn’t bluffing. Its legal theory points directly to the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which warned that shall‑issue licensing regimes may still be unconstitutional if they’re “put toward abusive ends” like “exorbitant fees” that block ordinary citizens from carrying. The Civil Rights Division is also invoking the pattern‑or‑practice statute, 34 U.S.C. § 12601, arguing that Glendale police enforcement of the city’s fee scheme could amount to systemic deprivation of constitutional rights — a step that can bring binding federal remedies, not just a refund check.
Why this matters: rights, fairness, and the national ripple effect
This fight is about more than one city’s budget line. If cities can quietly price law‑abiding citizens out of a constitutional right, the result will be a two‑tier system: wealthy residents can buy protection, while working families cannot legally defend themselves. That is exactly the kind of class‑based restriction local officials pretend not to notice. Winning against Glendale would send a clear signal to other municipalities that trying to dodge Bruen with punishing fees is a fast track to a federal courtroom.
Bottom line: good for Dhillon, bad for city hall posturing
Assistant Attorney General Dhillon deserves credit for moving swiftly to defend the Second Amendment against clever rule‑making meant to evade the courts. Glendale’s leaders can either admit they made a bad policy decision and fix it, or they can force a costly federal fight over something that should never have been controversial: the right to carry in public without paying a ransom. Either way, taxpayers and gun‑owners should watch closely — and city councils thinking about similar fee hikes should probably dust off their legal playbooks now.
