Assistant Attorney General and head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division Harmeet K. Dhillon told Denver officials that the city would face a federal lawsuit unless they ceased enforcing the city's ban on so-called assault weapons, and she's followed through with that threat in federal court.
Promises made, promises kept. The DOJ just sued the City of Denver over their AR-15 ban. pic.twitter.com/4TrDTFVDG1
— Hannah Hill (@hannahhill_sc) May 5, 2026
The lawsuit not only claims that Denver's gun ban violates the Second Amendment, but that the pattern and practices of the Denver Police Department in enforcing the ban deprives residents and others of the "rights, privileges, or immunities" protected by the U.S. Constitution.
In a press release, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declared, “the Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” adding, “Denver's ban on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles directly violates the right to bear arms."
Dhillon echoed those comments, stating that “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.”
The Trump administration is represented in the litigation by Civil Rights Division Second Amendment Section head Barry Arrington, who recently joined the DOJ after serving as the Chief Legal Counsel for the National Association for Gun Rights and chairman of the board of directors for Texas Gun Rights. Arrington is also a former Colorado state representative, and brings a wealth of knowledge about Colorado's gun control efforts to the table.
Arrington argues in the initial complaint that because Denver's ordinance covers activity protected by the Second Amendment, it's up to the city's attorneys to demonstrate that the ban is "consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation." Arrington goes on to say that's a virtually impossible task, given the commonality of the arms in question.
There is no historical tradition of banning arms in common use. Therefore, the Second Amendment protects arms typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes that are in “common use” today. The Ordinance bans AR-15 style rifles with standard capacity magazines. As set forth in this section, Americans own and use for lawful purposes tens of millions of AR-15 style rifles with standard capacity magazines. Accordingly, in this action, Plaintiff seeks an injunction prohibiting the City’s law enforcement officers from engaging in a pattern or practice of conduct pursuant to which they enforce the City’s prohibition on the possession of AR-15 style rifles with standard capacity magazines.
Arrington goes on to note that, as of 2021 there were at least 28 million modern sporting rifles in the United States, and the roughly 2.8 million AR-style semiautomatic rifles that were sold just in 2020 comprised about 20% of all firearms sold that year. He also points out that it's estimated about 20% of U.S. gun owners possess an AR-style rifle, though the number may be closer to 30%. Those millions of Americans own these guns for a variety of lawful purposes, including target shooting, home defense, and protection against the breakdown of law and order.
According to KDVR, DOJ also sent a demand letter last week to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, warning that continued enforcement of the state's prohibition on "large capacity" magazines would trigger similar litigation, though today's announcement by the DOJ didn't mention a second suit challenging Colorado's mag ban.
Weiser informed the Denver television station he'll "vigorously" defend the ban, claiming “large-capacity magazine laws are responsible policies that decrease the deadly impacts of mass shootings and save lives."
In truth, these policies squarely violate the Second Amendment, and are no impediment to individuals intent on mass murder. The first widespread attempts to limit the capacity of firearms didn't take place until the 1980s, nearly 200 years after the Second Amendment was ratified. Some courts have tried to get around that inconvenient fact by declaring that magazines aren't actually "arms" protected by the Second Amendment at all; an argument which, if taken to its logical conclusion, could allow states like Colorado to ban detachable magazines altogether and render semi-automatic handguns and rifles utterly useless for lawful purposes.
The DOJ's latest legal action is encouraging, and I hope we'll see similar litigation filed against Virginia's impending gun ban, as well as the magazine ban that Colorado has had in place for over a decade. There is no shortage of targets for a DOJ intent on going after state and local laws that violate our right to keep and bear arms, and I'm glad to see Dhillon and the Civil Rights Division taking aggressive action here.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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