Yesterday, the feds sued the city of San Jose, California for charging an egregiously high amount to obtain a carry permit. That’s a permit, by the way, to exercise a constitutionally protected civil right.
Like a lot of locations that were dragged kicking and screaming into the post-Bruen shall-issue world, the city of San Jose figured since they can’t refuse to issue carry permits, they’d put up other barriers. One easy way to keep applications to a minimum, the city fathers posited, is to price them in the stratosphere and make anyone who wants a carry permit pay through the nose.
Meanwhile, the current DOJ in Washington continues to remind us all just how much elections matter. In their announcement of a lawsuit challenging the city’s intentionally outlandish pricing, they noted that . . .
At nearly $1,600 per license, the City’s application fee to carry a firearm is the highest in the nation. Indeed, San Jose’s fee towers over those imposed by the country’s biggest cities. New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Chicago all charge a small fraction of San Jose’s fee. The Supreme Court has held that “exorbitant fees” such as San Jose’s violate the Second Amendment because they deny ordinary citizens their right to carry firearms for self-defense.
Exactly. That was clearly the intent all along. However, as SNW contributor Kostas Moros notes, $1600 doesn’t even encompass the full cost of obtaining a carry permit in Silicon Valley.
Astoundingly, $1,600 understates it.
That leaves out the training course of $300 to $500, the $400 psych exam, and the state’s fees of $93 + livescan fees.
Reaching about $2,500 to exercise a constitutional right. https://t.co/E6vUkUsZZq
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) September 16, 2026
San Jose, then, is the poster child for what the Justices anticipated when they wrote . . .
…because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.
The Court didn’t set an actual dollar limit for what’s “exorbitant,” but like Potter Stewart and porn, we all know it when we see it. And what’s San Jose’s been getting away with is pretty hard core.
One Couple Paid $12,800 in Permit Fees to Carry in 46 States: SAF, NRA and Four Other Groups Urge Supreme Court to Make Minnesota Honor Trucker’s Out-of-State Carry Licenses.
ht* tps://www.usacarry.com/one-couple-paid-12800-in-permit-fees-to-carry-in-46-states-saf-nra-and-four-other-groups-urge-supreme-court-to-make-minnesota-honor-truckers-out-of-state-carry-licenses/
Unconstitutional Fees? DOJ Files Major Lawsuit Against San Jose.
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvbDyWdLqAA
Is the Feds’ Biggest Gun Law Argument About to CRUMBLE?
A major new amicus brief in United States v. Squire is challenging the federal government’s claim that a firearm’s past movement across state lines can permanently establish federal jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1). We break down the Commerce Clause, Lopez, the founding-era history, and why the Fifth Circuit is being asked to overturn existing precedent.
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDFRWPiHzW4
Why the Biggest Threats to Your Rights Is NOT the Bans.
Circling back to the amicus efforts in Viramontes v. Cook County, today we focus on a brief from RMGO out of Colorado that points to the pre-purchase licensing regimes that are being esablished when outright bans do not pass the legislature. Take for example Colorado SB 003. Washington Gun Law President, William Kirk, takes a look at the memorandum which begs the Court to issue a broad ruling that will prevent other jurisdictions from doing exactly what Colorado has done. This is a tremendously important brief as if these bans are struck down, many civilian disarmament states will transition to abusive and burdensome pre-purchase licensing requirements. So learn more today and arm yourself with education.
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe06MyHWVm4
Obviously, only wealthy people who have that much expendable cash and can take that much time off work can be trusted to carry.
So say Democrats.
They need the support of all the poors to keep restricting the rights of the poors and to continually prop up the well-to-do as a special better-than-you class.
Unfortunately, even if the feds get an injunction halting these practices, the Ninth Circuit has consistently manifested its willingness to stay such injunctions, and then sit on the appeals for many years. Look at Young v. Hawaii, where the Court sat on a challenge to Hawaii’s complete prohibition of civilian carry (which they knew SCOTUS would likely strike down) for over **ten years**, eventually ruling that the prohibition was legal (and which SCOTUS promptly reversed). Even Ninth Circuit judges like Judge VanDyke have called out the Court for its blatant chicanery to thwart Second Amendment cases.
Unless and until SCOTUS puts its foot down (e.g., by lifting the stay on cases like Judge Benitez’s AWB and magazine capacity decisions, or by granting cert before the 9th Circuit rules), the Ninth Circuit will continue to just “pocket veto” the Supreme Court by a conscious practice of deliberate delay.