DOJ Adds San Jose Gun Insurance Mandate to Carry Fee Suit

Last updated October 2026 · By Nick Hall, who tracks federal and state firearms policy daily for USA Gun Shop readers

Quick take: The Justice Department has amended its lawsuit against San Jose to attack the city’s liability insurance mandate for gun owners, on top of the $1,591 carry fee. The new complaint also asks the federal court in San Jose to reconsider its own 2023 ruling that upheld the ordinance. Nothing has been decided, and every rule DOJ is challenging stays in force.

• What happened: DOJ filed a First Amended Complaint on September 29, 2026 in United States v. City of San Jose, case 5:26-cv-10508-PCP in the Northern District of California.
• Why it matters: The suit is no longer only about carry applicants, because the insurance ordinance applies to San Jose residents who own or possess a gun.
• What’s next: The city had not responded as of the docket’s September 29 update, and the first case management conference is set for December 17, 2026.
• Who to watch: Judge P. Casey Pitts, who was assigned the case the same day DOJ amended it.

The first complaint was a price story. This one is a different animal, because it goes after a gun control ordinance that already survived a Second Amendment challenge in the same court. I read both filings side by side to see what DOJ added, what it dropped, and what it now wants the court to undo.

Table of Contents

What the Amended San Jose Complaint Adds

Thirteen days after suing San Jose over its $1,591 concealed carry fee, DOJ filed a 15-page First Amended Complaint on September 29, 2026. It cited Rule 15(a)(1)(A), which lets a party amend its pleading once as a matter of course, so it did not need the court’s permission.

The fee claim is still there, with the same $318 up front and $1,273 at issuance. What is new is a section headed “Insurance Requirement,” and it changes who this case is about.

DOJ alleges that San Jose “requires anyone who owns or possesses a firearm to maintain an insurance policy” covering “losses or damages resulting from any accidental use of the firearm,” citing municipal code section 10.32.210. It adds that section 10.32.215 makes owners pay “an Annual Gun Harm Reduction Fee to the Designated Nonprofit Organization each year.”

The original complaint mentioned those code sections once, as examples of “additional financial strings” tied to the right. The amended one makes them a target.

Why DOJ Wants the Court to Reverse Itself on San Jose Gun Insurance

Here is the unusual part. DOJ admits in the complaint that this exact ordinance has already been upheld, and by the same federal district.

On July 13, 2023, Judge Beth Labson Freeman dismissed the Second Amendment claim in National Association for Gun Rights v. City of San Jose, case 22-cv-00501. Her order found that the Second Amendment’s plain text “does not cover” keeping guns at home “without the burden of insuring liability for firearm-related accidents.” She also found that 19th century surety statutes “bear striking analogical resemblances” to the insurance rule.

DOJ’s complaint says the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part on September 20, 2024, in a decision that is not precedential. Then it says the 2023 holding “has been abrogated by Wolford,” the Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in Wolford v. Lopez, and that DOJ “brings this action to have the Court reconsider its holding.”

DOJ’s reading is that Wolford turned the first step of the Bruen test into three short questions, whether the law applies to the people, whether it concerns arms, and whether it places “any restrictions” on keeping or carrying them, and that an insurance mandate for gun owners answers yes to all three. On history, it argues the surety laws do not fit, because the mandate “requires perpetual maintenance of liability insurance” while a surety restriction lifted once the finding of dangerousness was no longer in effect.

And DOJ already has its fallback written down. If the court still thinks the ordinance falls outside the Second Amendment’s text, the complaint says DOJ is “seeking further appellate review.” In plain terms, it is announcing the appeal in the complaint.

The Psychological Test Argument Moves From Price to Principle

The psychological test for carry applicants was in the first complaint too, but as a money problem. DOJ’s gripe then was that the police policy left the price to an “authorized psychologist” and gave applicants no notice of the cost.

The amended complaint still notes that the applicant pays, but the hidden-price argument is gone. In its place is a section titled “Abusive Psychological Testing Requirement” and a history argument. There is a tradition of disarming people “shown to have mental illness,” DOJ says, but not of “preemptively screening everyone” for an unspecified condition.

The complaint points to United States v. Rahimi, where the Supreme Court approved disarming people “found by a court to present a threat to others.” San Jose’s test, DOJ argues, applies to everyone and is assessed by the government alone, with no court reviewing the result.

DOJ also repeats that the test is police department policy. It says California’s carry license law does not require one, and that the requirement isn’t in the municipal code either.

What San Jose Gun Owners Have to Do Right Now

Nothing in the amended complaint changes the rules on the ground. It is a set of allegations, no judge has ruled on any of it, and the docket through September 29 shows no motion for emergency relief.

So the insurance rule still applies. The police department’s page on the ordinance says the requirement took effect on January 1, 2023, that a homeowner’s, renter’s or gun liability policy covering accidental use satisfies it, and that the city mandates no coverage minimum. A gun found without the city’s attestation form can draw an administrative citation, and the page says “Fees start at $250.”

The annual fee is a different story. The same page says it “is not currently being collected, but it is tentatively set to be $25” per household, and that no collection date has been set.

One detail the complaint leaves out: the department lists three exemptions, and one of them is anyone holding a California concealed carry license. Peace officers and people for whom compliance would be a financial hardship are the other two. So the license whose price DOJ attacks in one half of the complaint is also a way out of the mandate it attacks in the other half.

Where the San Jose Case Stands With Judge Pitts

The amended complaint also trims the caption. The San Jose Police Department is no longer a named defendant, which leaves the City of San Jose alone. DOJ still says the department’s officers carry out the pattern or practice that 34 U.S.C. 12601 lets it sue over.

On the same day, the case was reassigned from Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen to Judge P. Casey Pitts, with discovery referred to Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi. The clerk reset the initial case management conference for December 17, 2026 at 2:00 PM in Courtroom 8 in San Jose.

As of the docket’s last update on September 29, the city had not filed an answer or any other response. DOJ wants a declaratory judgment and a permanent injunction against “the unlawful conduct described above,” which now means the fee, the test and the insurance mandate together.

The $1,591 fee was a fight about one price. This is a fight about whether a city can make you insure a constitutional right. Bigger case. Same court that already said yes once.

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