The Justice Department's lawsuit challenging some of Montgomery County, Maryland's "gun-free zones" hit a major snag on Monday when a federal judge denied the agency's request for a preliminary injunction and instead granted the county's request to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it can't be refiled.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang didn't make any decisions about whether or not the county's ordinance that prohibits carrying within 100 yards of numerous locations, including parks, schools, and houses of worship, violates the Second Amendment. Instead, he concluded that the DOJ doesn't have the authority to bring a lawsuit under the federal statute it cited in its initial complaint.
The DOJ filed suit under 34 U.S.C. Section 12601, a federal statute that allows the Attorney General to seek relief against a government entity engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct by law enforcement officers.
The department argued that Montgomery County's Bill 23-26E, which restricts carrying firearms in and around numerous locations throughout the county, violates the Second Amendment. Because local law enforcement officers are responsible for enforcing the ordinance, DOJ contended that the county's adoption and potential enforcement of the law provided sufficient grounds for a federal lawsuit under Section 12601.
Chuang disagreed, beginning with the fact that DOJ had failed to identify any actual enforcement of the challenged restrictions.
As the judge explained, the government's complaint contained no allegations of unconstitutional arrests, citations, or other actions taken by Montgomery County law enforcement officers under the ordinance. Nor did DOJ identify a history of similar enforcement actions under earlier versions of the county's firearms restrictions.
According to Chuang, that lack of historical analogues was fatal to the government's argument because the statute specifically requires a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers. DOJ attempted to get around that requirement by arguing that the existence of an unconstitutional law that police could enforce was itself sufficient to establish a prohibited pattern or practice.
But Chuang rejected the idea that Congress intended to give the Justice Department such sweeping authority, concluding instead that Congress had created a mechanism for addressing systemic abuses by police departments, including unconstitutional searches, excessive force, discriminatory enforcement, and similar misconduct. In his view, the statute was not intended to provide DOJ with a general-purpose means of challenging laws simply because federal officials believe those laws violate constitutional rights.
Chuang also distinguished Section 12601 from other federal civil rights statutes that explicitly authorize the Justice Department to challenge broader patterns of resistance to constitutional or statutory rights. Congress knew how to provide that kind of authority when it wanted to, the judge reasoned, but chose narrower language in Section 12601.
The court also examined previous cases brought under the statute, including the Justice Department's intervention in Ferguson, Missouri. Those lawsuits involved allegations of actual unconstitutional conduct by police officers, not merely objections to the laws officers were expected to enforce.
Chuang also raised broader concerns about the implications of DOJ's interpretation. If the federal government could invoke Section 12601 whenever it believed a state or local law violated constitutional rights, the statute would become an extraordinarily powerful tool for federal intervention in matters traditionally handled by state and local governments.
That authority would extend far beyond gun control. A future administration could potentially employ the same reasoning to challenge local laws involving speech, protests, religious expression, and other constitutional protections.
Chuang characterized the government's proposed interpretation as a "breathtakingly broad expansion of federal power." In his view, such a significant expansion of federal authority would require clear authorization from Congress, rather than an expansive interpretation of a statute directed at police misconduct.
The judge granted Montgomery County's motion to dismiss, but he expressly declined to consider the constitutionality of Bill 23-26E, meaning his decision contains no analysis of whether the county's restrictions are consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearms regulation under Bruen.
The ruling is unquestionably a setback for the Trump administration's effort to challenge restrictive gun laws through the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. It also raises questions about whether similar lawsuits brought under Section 12601 can survive judicial scrutiny, at least without the DOJ presenting a more substantive argument. Virtually all of the DOJ's gun control litigation is based on the same reading of Section 12601 that Chuang found unacceptable, and he's essentially given other judges a roadmap to dismiss other lawsuits if they so choose.
But Montgomery County's victory is limited to the legal mechanism DOJ chose to pursue, and separate challenges by Second Amendment groups are ongoing and unaffected by today's decision. The Supreme Court is also considering granting cert to Novotny v. Moore, which is a challenge to many of the gun free zones imposed by the state of Maryland, if they accept that case then the decision could easily implicate some of Montgomery County's ordinances as well.