DOJ Warns San Francisco Sheriff Over Concealed Carry Delays

Well, this is good news… at least if you’re not San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto. 

As we covered on Thursday, the sheriff is apologizing after multiple concealed carry permitholders lost their ability to lawfully bear arms because his department didn’t process their permit renewal applications before their permits expired. In my post, I pointed out that while Second Amendment groups could file suit against the sheriff for failing to process these applications in a timely manner, by the time a hearing on a preliminary injunction is held Miyamoto could have approved (or denied) the renewal applications filed by the plaintiffs, which would render the case moot. 

I suggested instead that the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s new Second Amendment Section, could take action. The DOJ has already sued Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna over the LASD’s concealed carry delays, and it might be able to get the wheels of justice to spin a little faster than an independent pro-Second Amendment organization. 

As it turns out, the DOJ is taking an interest in the plight of those San Franciscans who’ve been deprived of their right to be arms because of the sheriff’s department can’t process their applications in a timely manner. 

The DOJ warned city au­thor­i­ties that, if they don’t get their house in or­der, they could face a law­suit along the lines of the one they filed against Los An­ge­les in Sep­tem­ber, which ac­cused the city of in­fring­ing res­i­dents’ sec­ond amend­ment rights amid a fail­ure to de­ter­mine CCW ap­pli­ca­tions promptly.

“San Fran­cis­co’s fail­ure to ad­e­quately staff its agen­cies while wast­ing mil­lions of tax­payer dol­lars on woke pro­jects, high-tech pub­lic toi­lets and mis­man­aged non­prof­its is not an ex­cuse to vi­o­late the con­sti­tu­tion,” said a DOJ spokes­woman in a state­ment [Thursday] af­ter­noon.

“San Fran­cisco would do well to re­view the law­suit we filed against Los An­ge­les County and re­vise its poli­cies and prac­tices ac­cord­ingly to en­sure com­pli­ance with the law,” she added.

That’s a great response, especially because it doesn’t just pin the blame on Miyamoto, who argues that the reason for the delays in processing applications is that his department is severely understaffed. San Francisco supervisors set the sheriff’s budget, and if they’re not allocating enough funds to have a functioning licensing department in the sheriff’s office (or the San Francisco PD) then they bear a large part of the blame. 

Still, Miyamoto has a statutory obligation to process renewals with 120 days of an application being submitted, and four months should be more than enough time to do so, especially given the fact that there are fewer than 200 active carry permits issued by his office. 

Second Amendment Foundation Director of Legal Research and Education Kostas Moros said in a post on X that the sheriff could make “one simple change” in the department’s policy and automatically extend expired permits is automatically while their renewal is processing. 

Moros added that, “while nothing in CA law allows for that, nothing in CA law allows them to take longer than 120 days either, and they ignore that all the time.”

I wish it were that simple, but even if Miyamoto established that policy for his department, other law enforcement agencies might not agree. So while someone waiting on their renewal application to be approved wouldn’t have to worry about being arrested by sheriff’s deputies, they could still be arrested by San Francisco PD or police in any other community where they try to carry concealed. 

The Democrat majority in Sacramento could make that change in statute so it applies statewide, but they’re not going to do so willingly. With the DOJ already suing the Los Angeles sheriff and threatening action against San Francisco’s though, perhaps a federal judge will insist on that common sense revision to the state’s concealed carry regime in the not-too-distant future. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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