Trump’s Department of Justice has launched a lawsuit against the District of Columbia over what it says are restrictive gun control laws. It is ironic that a nation known for guaranteeing the right to bear arms has such laws on the books in its capital city.
The suit appears to focus mainly on the AR-15.
The Associated Press reports:
The Trump administration is suing the District of Columbia over its gun lawsThe Trump administration is suing the local government of Washington, D.C., over its gun laws, alleging that restrictions on certain semiautomatic weapons run afoul of Second Amendment rights.The U.S. Department of Justice filed its lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, naming Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and outgoing Chief of Police Pamela Smith as defendants and setting up another potentially seismic clash on how broadly the courts interpret individual gun possession rights.“The United States of America brings this lawsuit to protect the rights that have been guaranteed for 234 years and which the Supreme Court has explicitly reaffirmed several times over the last two decades,” the Justice Department states.It’s the second such lawsuit the administration has filed this month: The Justice Department also is suing the U.S. Virgin Islands, alleging the U.S. territory is obstructing and systematically denying American citizens the right to possess and carry guns…The Justice Department asserts that the District is imposing unconstitutional bans on AR-15s and other semiautomatic weapons the administration says are legal to posses under the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller precedent, which also originated from a dispute over weapons restrictions in the nation’s capital.
This is part of a press release from the DOJ:
Today, the Justice Department sued the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), alleging that the District government and MPD unconstitutionally ban the AR-15 and many other firearms protected under the Second Amendment. The District’s gun laws require anyone seeking to own a gun to register it with D.C. Metro Police. However, the D.C. Code provides a broad registration ban on numerous firearms — an unconstitutional incursion into the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens seeking to own protected firearms for lawful purposes. MPD’s current pattern and practice of refusing to register protected firearms is forcing residents to sue to protect their rights and to risk facing wrongful arrest for lawfully possessing protected firearms.“Today’s action from the Department of Justice’s new Second Amendment Section underscores our ironclad commitment to protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Washington, DC’s ban on some of America’s most popular firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment — living in our nation’s capital should not preclude law-abiding citizens from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
A new division in the DOJ Civil Rights Division announced earlier this month may have foreshadowed this development.
From FOX News:
DOJ promises ‘a lot more action’ on gun rights with new Second Amendment enforcement sectionDepartment of Justice (DOJ) official Harmeet Dhillon announced that her agency is unveiling a gun rights-focused section on Monday, promising Americans that “a lot more action” on gun rights enforcement will be taken.Dhillon, who works as an assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said that her division had started a Second Amendment section this month.”I’m really excited about this,” said Dhillon. “For the first time, the DOJ Civil Rights Division and the DOJ at large will be protecting and advancing our citizens’ right to bear arms as part of our civil rights work.”
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