The Second Amendment Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has sued the city of Denver over its “assault weapons” ban. It’s important to see this lawsuit in the context of what the Trump DOJ has done in support of gun rights in the last 15+ months.
This is, unless I’m forgetting one, the fourth civil rights lawsuit by the DOJ to defend Second Amendment rights in the places they are under siege:
1. Sued the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department over its years-long wait times for carry permits
2. Sued the US Virgin Islands over unconstitutional gun permit denials
3. Sued the District of Columbia over its AWB
4. Now this Denver lawsuit
That’s on top of the many amicus briefs, the ATF rule changes just announced, the upcoming rights restoration process, and so on.
We are a cynical bunch in the 2A space, and perhaps that comes with the territory of being activists for a right which is centered on the ultimate skepticism of government power. But it’s critical to acknowledge that, in terms of federal support of the Second Amendment, we’ve never had it so good in modern history.
The only comparison I can think of, as I often note, is the Reconstruction-era Freedmen’s Bureau, which also tried hard to defend gun rights for people whose government was trying to disarm them.
Here’s the DOJ’s announcement of the suit . . .
Today, the Justice Department filed suit against the City of Denver, Colorado alleging that the City unconstitutionally bans certain constitutionally protected semi-automatic rifles. These laws unconstitutionally infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms in common use for lawful purposes.
As the complaint explains, the City enforces an ordinance that makes it a crime to possess so-called “assault weapons.” But that the City’s ban includes AR-15-style rifles, which are the most popular rifles in America. Law-abiding Americans own tens of millions of rifles like those banned by the City.
“The Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Denver’s ban on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles directly violates the right to bear arms. This Department of Justice will vigorously defend the liberties of law-abiding citizens nationwide.”
“I have directed the Civil Rights Division, through our new Second Amendment Section, to defend law-abiding Americans from restrictions such as those we are challenging in these cases,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Law-abiding Americans, regardless of what city or state they reside in, should not have to live under threat of criminal sanction just for exercising their Second Amendment right to possess arms which are owned by tens of millions of their fellow citizens.”
In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its landmark decision District of Columbia v. Heller, held that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding citizens to possess weapons that are in common use for lawful purposes.
The Civil Rights Division’s Second Amendment Section enforces the Second Amendment. If you believe your right to keep and bear arms is being infringed, please submit a complaint through justice.gov/crt/second-amendment-section.
Kostas Moros is Director of Legal Research and Education for the Second Amendment Foundation.