The Justice Department (DOJ) has made good on its threat against Glendale, California. On November 9, 2026, the United States filed a federal lawsuit against the city in the Central District of California, claiming Glendale’s concealed carry licensing process is so expensive and so invasive that it violates the Second Amendment rights of the people who live there.
The case is United States of America v. City of Glendale, California. The complaint doesn’t pull many punches. According to the DOJ, an applicant for a carry license in Glendale “must pay an outrageous $1,078.00 application fee,” and once the city’s other mandates are added in, “total fees and costs for an initial application can be as much as $2,000.”
This didn’t come out of nowhere. On October 28, then Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon posted on X that Glendale “cannot impose unconstitutional $2,000 costs to obtain a concealed carry permit for lawful firearms,” and that the Civil Rights Division “gave them one week to fix it.” According to Dhillon, the city had recently raised its application fee from $100 to $1,078. The week came and went. Dhillon resigned from the department on November 5, and four days later the lawsuit landed anyway.
That last part matters. The complaint went out under the names of Attorney General Todd Blanche and Acting Assistant Attorney General Jesus A. Osete, and it was signed by Barry K. Arrington, Chief of the Second Amendment Section. Anyone who wondered whether the Second Amendment Section would keep swinging after Dhillon walked out the door got an answer.
What Glendale Charges
According to the complaint, the Glendale Police Department admits on its own application page that getting a license is “a long, tedious, and meticulous process” and that “[t]here are corresponding costs per step as the application moves forward.”
Those steps include residency verification, Live Scan fingerprinting, three reference checks, an interview, a “[r]eview of publicly available information, including social media posts,” a psychological evaluation, 16 hours of training with range qualification, and a final payment if you’re approved.
The money breaks down like this, per the DOJ. New applicants pay $1,078 to the city, half up front and half after approval. Renewals run $826, split the same way. On top of that, the department lists fingerprinting at a “Standard $93.00 State DOJ Fee + Rolling Fees that Vary by Provider,” the training class and range qualification at roughly $300 to $435, and a psych evaluation at about $500. Renewal applicants also pay a separate $52 DOJ fee.
Add it up, and the DOJ puts the initial cost at about $2,000, before the fingerprint vendor takes its cut. A renewal runs about $1,300, and the complaint says renewed Glendale licenses are good for only two years, so that bill comes due “every two years indefinitely.” California’s AB 1948 allows three-year licenses starting January 1, 2027, but the complaint says the city hasn’t said whether it will follow suit.
The DOJ boiled it down to about $54.17 a month “to exercise a fundamental constitutional right.” Then it pulled out Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the 1966 case where the Supreme Court struck down a $1.50 poll tax. Adjusted for inflation, the government puts that at about $15.65. “No matter if it is $1.30 per month or $54.17 per month to exercise fundamental rights, it is still equally unconstitutional,” the complaint says.
A right you have to buy back from the government every two years isn’t being treated like a right. Nobody pays the city $1,078 to go to church.
Footnote Nine Comes Home
The legal heart of the case is footnote 9 of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The Court said shall-issue permitting could survive, but warned that any scheme “can be put toward abusive ends,” and it named “exorbitant fees” as one way to get there. California law says the licensing authority “shall issue” a license once an applicant meets the state’s requirements. The DOJ says Glendale found a way around that, and the complaint claims the city “charges, by far, the highest fees in the nation.”
The government also goes after the discretion built into the process. It claims the three reference checks, the social media review and the psych exam “convert its shall-issue scheme into a may-issue one.” On social media, it points to Antonyuk v. James, where the Second Circuit blocked New York’s demand that carry applicants hand over their account names. It also calls residency requirements “blatantly unconstitutional,” citing cases from Hawaii, New York and California.
The psych exam gets its own section. Under state law, psychological testing on a renewal is supposed to happen “only if there is compelling evidence of a public safety concern.” The complaint says Glendale’s policy “appears to impose a blanket requirement” anyway. The DOJ argues that Heller’s nod to “longstanding prohibitions” on the mentally ill gives no cover for “preemptively screening everyone for some vague, undefined psychological condition.”
What the DOJ Wants
The single claim is brought under 34 U.S.C. § 12601, the pattern-or-practice law the Second Amendment Section also used against Washington, D.C. in May. Here, the alleged pattern is Glendale PD enforcing the city’s permit rules. The government wants a declaratory judgment and a permanent injunction against “the excessive fees, onerous investment of an applicant’s time, the psychiatric exam requirement, reference checks, social media posts, and residency requirement.”
The most interesting ask comes last. The DOJ wants Glendale to find every person it denied a carry license under the challenged provisions and send each of them a letter saying the city “may have denied the permit application on improper and unconstitutional grounds,” along with an invitation to reapply. The city would also have to offer back every psych exam and social media review it collected, and destroy any that don’t go back unless it has an independent, lawful law enforcement purpose.
These are allegations. No judge has ruled, and the city will get its chance to respond. But the Civil Rights Division has run this play before, against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which agreed to a settlement in August, and against San Jose over its fees and psych testing. Glendale got its week. Now it gets to explain to a federal judge why a carry permit in that city costs about two grand.
About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and constitutional activist with more than 26 years of experience in networking and cybersecurity for major Fortune 100 companies. John has written about firearms, the Constitution, and cybersecurity, and has interviewed people from all walks of life. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons. Follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.
