The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has taken San Jose to federal court over a concealed-carry permit fee of nearly $1,600. In a suit filed in September 2026, the Division alleges that the city’s CCW application charge is the highest in the nation and an unconstitutional barrier to the right to carry a firearm in public.
The case sits at the center of the Bruen-era fight over who can afford to exercise the right to bear arms. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen held that the Second Amendment protects carrying a handgun in public for self-defense. San Jose’s fee tests whether a city may keep that right on paper while putting it out of financial reach.
Nearly sixteen hundred dollars is not a modest processing cost. It is a wealth filter. Applicants who cannot write a four-figure check never reach the point of lawful public carry. A permit system that functions only for those who can pay the nation’s highest CCW fee is a local ordinance colliding with the Constitution.
The Civil Rights Division is treating the charge as a rights violation, not a budget line. The Second Amendment is not a municipal franchise. Cities may recover genuine, limited costs of running a licensing office. They may not stack fees until public carry is reserved for residents who can meet a price no other city in the country demands.
Bruen closed the door on interest-balancing that let officials weigh policy preferences against the text. A $1,600 application fee does the same work with a price tag. If only the affluent complete the paperwork, the ordinance has rewritten the right. Statute yields to the Constitution.
San Jose remains free to process applications. It is not free to convert the right to keep and bear arms into a pay-to-play privilege. The people the Amendment protects include working men and women who will never treat a CCW as a luxury purchase.
Officials in that city swore an oath to the Constitution, not to a local fee schedule. The Justice Department has now put San Jose’s CCW charge into a federal complaint. The court must decide whether a permitting price this high may stand when it functions as a ban on everyone who cannot afford to exercise the right to bear arms.
References
- https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-san-jose-unconstitutional-1600-firearm-permit-fee
- https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1461516/dl
- https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/doj-san-jose-1591-ccw-permit-fee/
- https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/09/10/doj-turns-its-sights-on-san-joses-sky-high-carry-permit-fees-n1233758
- https://townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/09/10/harmeet-n2682723