The District of Columbia has some ridiculous gun control laws and has had them for quite some time. It’s weird to think that they were “shall issue” on concealed carry permits well before Bruen, but not so much when you remember that the only reason they did so was that they lost in the circuit court and didn’t want to take the case farther so we’d get what we got in Bruen.
In other words, the only pro-gun move they’ve ever made was because of anti-gun reasons. They didn’t want to kill “may issue” across the nation, which they knew would happen.
So it’s good news that they’re getting sued by the Department of Justice over their gun control laws, and the folks at the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms are celebrating the news.
From a press release:
The Trump administration has filed a federal lawsuit against the District of Columbia, challenging the city’s continuing effort, despite Supreme Court rulings, to restrict and infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is cheering the action.
“We are proud to see the Trump administration stand up for the constitutional and civil rights of Americans who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This lawsuit shows the night and day difference between this administration and the previous one that attacked the right to keep and Bear arms at every turn.”
The lawsuit, filed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Civil Rights Division, names the District of Columbia and Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith, in her official capacity, as defendants. In their complaint, the administration states the District “denies law-abiding citizens the ability to register a wide variety of commonly used semi-automatic firearms, such as the Colt AR-15 series rifles, which is among the most popular of firearms in America, and a variety of other semi-automatic rifles and pistols that are in common use.”
“The significance of the administration’s action here cannot be over-stated,” Gottlieb observed. “The Trump administration is taking the fight to restore Second Amendment rights literally to the belly of the beast. This lawsuit sends a message to every other anti-gun jurisdiction that the days of dancing around, or completely ignoring, Supreme Court rulings in Heller, McDonald and Bruen have come to an end.”
As the Justice Department’s lawsuit clearly notes, “D.C’s current semi-automatic firearms prohibition that bans many commonly used pistols, rifles or shotguns is based on little more than cosmetics, appearance, or the ability to attach accessories, and fails to take into account whether the prohibited weapon is “in common use today” or that law-abiding citizens may use these weapons for lawful purposes protected by the Second Amendment.
“This case concerns much more than dormant, bad law,” the complaint adds. “It concerns the very real requirement that the DC Defendants have acted and are continuing to act in blatant disregard to our Constitution and the rulings of our Nation’s highest court.”
These are the kind of lawsuits we’re used to seeing from groups like the Second Amendment Foundation, the NRA, Gun Owners of America, or the Firearms Policy Coalition, among others. Knowing that the Department of Justice is actually addressing the problem is big.
Yes, there are other problems involving the DOJ and the Second Amendment, in particular them holding the line on NFA registration for things like suppressors and short-barreled rifles. That’s a problem, and it needs to be addressed. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
But I’ll also take my wins where I can, and having the full might of the DOJ take on the District of Columbia and its blatantly unconstitutional ban on so-called assault weapons is a significant win.
Follow-through will matter, of course, but I see no reason not to see that as a given right now, at least through President Trump’s term.
The truth is that, as the DOJ notes, these bans are over scary looks, not the function of any of the firearms in question. They allow plenty of other semi-automatic weapons, and most such guns are never misused anyway. They’re not commonly used for criminal acts, and despite the hysteria over mass shootings, handguns are still the most common weapon for such incidents anyway.
And the Supreme Court already smacked DC down on their handgun nonsense already, so that’s a non-starter.
Hopefully, this gets resolved quickly and in a way that finally respects the Constitution.
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