Department of Justice probes Connecticut towns over firearm waiting periods

(The Center Square) — The U.S. Justice Department is investigating two Connecticut cities over claims they are violating Second Amendment rights by delaying the issuance of firearm permits.

The DOJ's Civil Rights Division announced Thursday that it has opened an investigation into Middletown and Waterbury, Connecticut, "to determine whether they unnecessarily delay the issuance of firearm permits to their residents." The investigation will focus on the Middletown and Waterbury police departments’ permitting systems, the DOJ said.

“All law-abiding Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms for self‑defense,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division said in a statement. "This right is not a luxury reserved for a privileged few, but a fundamental liberty for all, including the residents of Middletown and Waterbury, Connecticut."

The Supreme Court’s 2022 seminal ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen recognized that the right to keep and bear arms applies with equal force inside and outside the home. In Bruen, the Supreme Court warned against “lengthy wait times in processing license applications” that effectively “deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.”

"The Middletown and Waterbury police departments may be unreasonably denying otherwise qualified applicants a CCW permit and forcing them to undergo a potentially years-long appeal process to exercise this fundamental right," Dhillon said.

There was no immediate comment from the local governments or state Attorney General William Tong, whose office would likely be defending the municipal governments from any resulting legal action.

The federal investigation comes after a 2025 state audit found that the Connecticut Board of Firearms Permit Examiners, a nine-member board that considers appeals of firearm permit denials, had a backlog of 1,203 cases that was forcing applicants to wait months for hearings before the panel.

Connecticut, which like many Northeast states has tough gun control laws, is also facing separate legal challenges over its 1994 "assault weapon" ban and a new law setting tough new restrictions on the open carry of firearms in public places.

The state's assault weapon ban was approved in 2013 in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, when a lone gunman killed 20 children and six educators.

Earlier this month, a federal judge temporarily blocked a Connecticut law banning the sale of handguns that can be turned into "virtual machine guns" through the addition of a device known as a Glock switch that increases the rate of fire.

In that ruling, U.S. District Judge Kari Dooley wrote that the law is inconsistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearms regulation, and because of that was likely unconstitutional. She issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect while the case plays out in court.